Search For The White Rabbit 2020

Zoe Hawk painted ‘Search for the White Rabbit’ with oils on canvas. It’s fascinating to think about how Zoe built up this scene, layer by layer. There’s something very staged about the composition, with the figures arranged within a forest of vertical tree trunks and dark foliage. It’s like a theater set, all of the figures pointing our eye towards the little white rabbit in the foreground. I can almost see her, brush in hand, figuring out where each character should stand, tilt their head, and what the collective gaze should be. Hawk seems interested in the uncanny and the unsettling, and I can imagine that she is fascinated by a lot of the same artists as me. Perhaps she has looked at the paintings of Balthus or Paula Rego? There’s a similar psychological tension at play, with the narrative implications left ambiguous and unresolved. Painting is a long conversation that is not only about a subject but about the history of painting itself.