You Can't Have Your Cake and Eat it Too
Shaun Hayes
You Can't Have Your Cake and Eat it Too (detail) 2024
Midfire clay
Layered glazes
30 x 20 x 7 cm
About the Artwork
You Can’t Have Your Cake and Eat It Too examines the uneasy relationship between beauty, consumption, and waste. Through a series of vessel-like sculptures, discarded plastic objects are transformed into enduring ceramic forms that elevate the familiar while exposing the lasting consequences of disposable culture. Cliché, familiarity, and repetition become tools for examining the overlooked rituals of everyday consumption, with each vessel acting as both a repository and record of contemporary life. Through careful arrangement, collage, and a restrained tonal palette, mundane objects are reimagined as artefacts that invite closer inspection. The work reflects the tension between permanence and impermanence, revealing how materials designed for convenience can outlast generations. Subtle recycling symbols embedded within the sculptures speak to both hope and futility, questioning the promises of sustainability while encouraging viewers to reconsider their relationship with plastic and the enduring legacy of consumerism.
About the Artist
Shaun Hayes is a ceramic artist based in Ngario Country (Captains Flat, NSW), whose practice explores the intersection of memory, material, and environmental consciousness. Transforming discarded plastic objects into enduring ceramic sculptures, Shaun challenges perceptions of value, permanence, and waste. His work combines nostalgia and humour to encourage reflection on the everyday objects we consume, overlook, and discard.
Shaun completed a Bachelor of Arts (Visual) with Honours in Ceramics at the ANU School of Art & Design in 2013. In 2023, he exhibited in Jingdezhen, China. His achievements include winning the Muswellbrook Art Prize, Ceramics (2024); being a finalist in the Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize (2020); and exhibiting with Stanley Street Gallery at the Sydney Contemporary Art Fair (2018, 2023, 2024) and at the Melbourne Design Fair (2023).