Waterway 2015

This is Waterway, a painting by Zoe Hawk. The pale pink clouds and muted palette create this strange feeling of girlhood, and looking at it, I think a lot about the process of applying thin layers of paint, one after another. Hawk really uses the materiality of paint to create mood; the water is a cool, almost eerie green, and the figures seem suspended between states. The mark-making is precise, especially on the cliff face, where each little stroke builds up the rock's texture. Then, the water feels almost flat by comparison. It’s as if Hawk is thinking through this idea of change, of girls becoming women, but also playing with pictorial space. There's something Hopper-esque in the way she uses light, but filtered through a very contemporary lens, making you think about how artists borrow from each other across time. It's less about a fixed meaning and more about an open conversation.