Zoe Hawk
About
Zoe Hawk is an American artist, born in St. Louis and currently living in Columbia, Missouri. Her work deals with the complex experience of girlhood, exploring adolescent anxiety, feminine identity, and belonging.
The narratives depicted in the paintings are meant to be sweet and somewhat familiar to the viewer, yet upon closer inspection they take a mysterious or unsettling turn. Sometimes conveying innocence and curiosity, other times confronting uncertainty and fear, her work investigates both the wonder and distress involved in coming of age. The characters inhabit their own little worlds and act out their own dramas; their clothing signifies various modes of feminine identity, while backdrops of wild landscapes, institutional settings, and suburban spaces set the stage for the girls’ interactions. Somewhere between childhood and adulthood—between fairytales and the dark realities of womanhood—the girls engage in an intricate play of yearning, contention, camaraderie, and mischief, as they navigate their social and physical environments.
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Zoe Hawk
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Zoe Hawk
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3 questions on inspiration with
Zoe Hawk
We're asking artists to choose one notable person, place and object that has inspired them in their journey so far. We're mapping inspiration at a scale never attempted before
Person
Reading Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre" when I was twelve had a profound effect on me and my life as an artist. Bronte's writing from the perspective of Jane— first as a fraught young girl, then as a young woman — and the powerful use of metaphor in her storytelling was deeply influential in how I approach narrative in my work. I believe that my early fascination with the settings, characters, and mood of her book can be evidenced in many of the choices I make in my paintings.
Place
In 2018 I had the opportunity to attend an artist residency at Cow House Studios in Ireland, and traveled around the country afterwards with my sisters. I was so captivated by the landscapes I encountered, that I've probably made more work based on Ireland than any other singular place I've visited. Anytime you see a mossy forest, a rocky landscape, a stone structure, a cliff, or the ocean in my paintings, it was most likely based on an Irish landscape.
Object
Perhaps it's not a singular object, but from a young age I've loved vintage clothing. My fascination likely began with some clothes from the 50s and 60s given to me and my sisters by a family friend to play dress-up with, and from looking at photographs of my mother in her youth wearing pretty dresses and her majorette uniforms. I now not only collect vintage clothes to use as a reference for my paintings, but also have a library of clothing catalogues from the 1940s through the 70s to use as inspiration for my characters.
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