This Way Over Obstacle 2016

Zoe Hawk's painting, "This Way Over Obstacle," uses oil to conjure up a sense of arrested development. The color palette is all pastels, pinks, and greens, very deliberately chosen. You can tell she put thought into color theory, making a visual world that on first glance seems benign but quickly becomes a little nightmarish. Look at the way she has painted the house in the background. The paint seems thin, almost watery, and applied in long, deliberate strokes that emphasize the wood grain. The lawn is a dense green, applied with shorter, choppier strokes, a visual signifier of child's play. That little figure, with her hammer and backpack, is a symbol of childhood determination, but for what? Is she building something or tearing something down? Is Hawk telling us that childhood is a construction? I’m reminded of Balthus. He made a career out of this unsettling, in-between space. Art, after all, is never really finished, just abandoned.