Hayden Clay is an American visual artist who creates 3D digital renders and analog double-exposure photographs that blur the line between dreams and reality, turning water, clouds, and suburban architecture into scenes of strange tranquility. He renders his 3D scenes with added grain and depth of field so they read closer to a film photograph or a watercolor painting than a typical digital render.
Clay's father is a watercolor painter but discouraged him from becoming an artist, so Clay studied biochemistry and then computer science before returning to art in his twenties. He began in film photography, buying a Canon AE-1 camera from a thrift store and experimenting with multiple exposures that combined light from different scenes. Unable to find a flooded tennis court to photograph in Maryland, he taught himself 3D rendering to create the scene instead, a shift that led to Summer Games.
