Artist's Statement
Clare graduated in Fine Art with First Class Honours from Arts University Bournemouth. She specialises in contemporary expressionist painting: working primarily with oils and depending heavily on use of colour and gesture, size, and scale.
Her work flits between figurative and abstract. Conscious blurring can express the overlooked and invisible elements in life, art, and society. Themes drawn from both contemporary and art historical issues are considered from the perspective of both painter and painted.
Inspiration can come from classical works - how these can be revisited in the light of changing values about the world of artists themselves, as well as their subjects, or from other art forms such as literature and cinema.
Key influences include contemporary artists Cecily Brown, Rita Ackermann, Amy Sillman, and the legacy of painters at the centre of modernist and expressionist painting development, including Cezanne, Matisse, Soutine, DeKooning, Diebenkorn.
How paint can create marks, layers and texture that combine its unpredictability with physical manipulation underpins Clare’s treatment of figures and their relationship with the environment and landscape.
Clare Hawkes Fine Art, Workshop 2, Abbey Farm, Church Street, Abbotsbury, Dorset, DT3 4JJ
Contemporary Expressionist Painting inspired by colour, gesture and cultural references
Clare graduated in Fine Art with First Class Honours from Arts University Bournemouth. She specialises in contemporary expressionist painting: working primarily with oils and depending heavily on use of colour and gesture, size, and scale.
Her work flits between figurative and abstract. Conscious blurring can express the overlooked and invisible elements in life, art, and society. Themes drawn from both contemporary and art historical issues are considered from the perspective of both painter and painted.
Inspiration can come from classical works - how these can be revisited in the light of changing values about the world of artists themselves, as well as their subjects, or from other art forms such as literature and cinema.
Key influences include contemporary artists Cecily Brown, Rita Ackermann, Amy Sillman, and the legacy of painters at the centre of modernist and expressionist painting development, including Cezanne, Matisse, Soutine, DeKooning, Diebenkorn.
How paint can create marks, layers and texture that combine its unpredictability with physical manipulation underpins Clare’s treatment of figures and their relationship with the environment and landscape.
Clare Hawkes Fine Art, Workshop 2, Abbey Farm, Church Street, Abbotsbury, Dorset, DT3 4JJ
Contemporary Expressionist Painting inspired by colour, gesture and cultural references