Clare Hawkes
Painting and drawing
Clare graduated in Fine Art with First Class Honours from Arts University Bournemouth. She has a working studio, open to visitors in Abbotsbury, West Dorset. In 2025 she exhibited at The Sherborne Art Centre, The Fine Foundation Gallery at Durlston Castle, Swanage, and had work selected for the South West Academy of Fine and Applied Arts Open Exhibition at Kennaway House, Sidmouth. Clare specialises in contemporary expressionist painting: working primarily with oils and depending heavily on use of colour and gesture, size, and scale. Her work flirts with the cusp of figurative and abstract. The conscious blurring of the figure, often starting with the human form, 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. Ideas are frequently drawn from other cultural references: e.g. cinema, literature and music. Key influences include contemporary artists Cecily Brown, Rita Ackermann, Jennifer Pochinski, and the legacy of painters at the centre of modernist and expressionist painting development, including Cezanne, Soutine, DeKooning, Joan Mitchell, Richard Diebenkorn, Paul Wonner, David Park and the San Francisco Bay Area Expressionist Movement. 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.
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: clarehawkes.com