“The characters in my paintings don’t readily give away their stories; their histories of desire and love. But it is a seductive world that they seem to hint at, a place of myth-making and mystery. They invite us in at some level to speculate on the idealized memories of their lives and to give a second thought to the half-forgotten fables we each collect and carry through our own world.”
The paintings of Pam Hawkes are not portraits as such. Something else is going on in her richly worked, exquisitely realistic images. Each painting offers up fragments, broken or mirrored images, or self-absorbed reflections of exquisite young women and men.
Who are these people? And why do they seem to enfold, embrace and pull us into their world with their hunted eyes, transparent skin, and breathtakingly beautiful frozen glances.
Pam Hawkes works from within traditions of Renaissance portraiture; certainly, at a technical level, her paintings are remarkable and highly skilled depictions of sitters within exotic, lush and decadent settings. But she also embraces more contemporary issues such as the construction of identity, the existence and physicality of desire, the ambiguity of sexuality and the push-pull of power that exists between the viewer and the subject of their vision.
Complex, sensual, erotic and powerful… Pam Hawkes’ paintings take your breath away while simultaneously breathing life back into your soul.
– Celia Lendis. September 2013.
“At first glance the rich, dark colors and muted gleam of gold leaf are reminiscent of grand late Renaissance portraits, but a second look reveals a vulnerability in the sitters which is at odds with their formal pose. Pam Hawkes’s mind is steeped in illuminated manuscripts and religious iconography which she transmits into striking images of today. She loves the idea of stillness, so often personified by the Virgin in paintings of the Annunciation throughout the ages, but many of the women of her portraits betray agitation behind their apparent tranquility.”
– Mary Rose Beaumont. 2010.
For the last fifteen years Pam Hawkes as taught on fine art courses at colleges and universities around Birmingham, England, where she resides. During this time she has also shown in London, Europe and America in joint and solo exhibitions.
1993-1996 Coventry University/Solihull College
1998-2011 Visiting Lecturer, Fine Art, Solihull College/Wolverhampton University
Interview with Combustus online art magazine biography
Interview in PoetsArtists (July 2012)
2016 Catto Gallery, London
2013 Forgotten Fables, Celia Lendis Gallery, Moreton in the Marsh
2012 Flying Colours Gallery, London
2012 Catto Gallery, London
2010 Flying Colours Gallery, London
2009 Catto Gallery, London
2009 Eagle Works, Wolverhampton
2007 Catto Gallery, London
2017 Summer Show Catto Gallery, London
2017 Figurative Show, Red Rag Gallery, Bath
2016 Summer Show, Catto Gallery, London
2016 Christmas Show, Open Eye Gallery Edinburgh
2015 Looking Forward Into the Past, RJD Gallery, Sag Harbor, New York
2015 Women Painting Women, RJD Gallery, Sag Harbor, New York
2013 Women Painting Women, RJD Gallery, Sag Harbor, New York
2013 British Art Fair, Royal College of Art, London
2013 Women Painting Women Show, Glasgow
2013 New Realism, The Gallery, Liverpool.
2013 The Man Show, Kwan Fong Gallery, Thousand Oaks, California
2012 British Art Fair, London
2012 Art Catto, Portugal
2011 Flying Colours Gallery, Edinburgh
2011 British Art Fair, Royal College of Art, London
2010 Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh
2010 British Art Fair, Royal College of Art, London
2009 British Art Fair, Royal College of Art, London
2008 Contemporary Art Fair, Dublin
2008 Contemporary Art Fair, London
2007 Contemporary Art Fair, Dublin
2006 Chelsea Affordable Art Fair London
2006 Rose Café, Santa Monica, California
2005 Kraft Gallery, Los Angeles, California
2005 Chelsea Affordable Art Fair, London
2004 Compton Cassey Gallery, Cheltenham
2004 London Art Fair, Islington, London.
2003 Barn End Gallery, Solihull
2003 London Art Fair, Islington, London
1997 RBSA Jaguar Prize
1997 Thesis Prize, Association of Art Historians, Coutauld Institute
1997 Leicester Open Prize winner
2005 RBSA Open Prize winner
