Tim Hawkinson

As a painter, draftsman and sculptor, Tim Hawkinson has become renowned for his limitless imagination and ability to create new forms of perception. His work manipulates what is most familiar to us in ways that invite close examination by the viewer, welcome previously unimaginable perspectives, and encourage a sense of wonder.

Hawkinson’s works in All that glitters, Must come down are as playful as they are subversive. The unexpected materials and tactile qualities of Untitled (Bike Links) (2018) and Untitled (Moby Bather) (2018) are reminiscent of the soft sculptures of Claes Oldenburg, as is the fantastical scale of Juggernaut (2018). However, upon further investigation Juggernaut (2018) is actually an assemblage of egg cartons, metallic film, and a pool ladder. Questioning boundaries is integral to Hawkinson’s practice, and this material idiosyncrasy tests our understanding of what an object is or can be. For Hawkinson, adaptation and transformation are not limited to the materials around him and Hawkinson’s own body is frequently his most utilized tool. For Untitled (Star) (2018), Hawkinson took impressions of his elbow, knee, and even belly button. The artist’s engagement with the body and investigation of the human form are described in Doug Harvey’s Encyclopedia Hawkinsoniae, where he writes: "Hawkinson is one of a handful of artists whose depictions of the human body embrace the challenges posed by modernism and the information age, subjecting its rhythms and dimensions to measurement, fragmentation, transformation, and ultimately rebirth. No more or less than the Lascaux painters to Vito Acconci have done, but in a new form that is coincidentally discrete and continuous, binary and holistic, deconstructive and generative, sexy and clinical, sublime and ridiculous." [i]