UK artist Pete Hawkins paints on found materials: old wooden doors, school desktops, and cardboard to name a few. Mountain climbers climb towers of wooden bricks; Airplane models fight in imaginary dogfights; and one little princess dreams of riding her trike alongside Denis Hopper and Peter Fonda; all modern fables are painted on unusual surfaces.
The doors, which were all salvaged from the British county of Yorkshire, are all visibly worn by the hands of time; this creates an interesting juxtaposition between the wood surface and Pete’s sensitive oil painting style. Each painting possesses the slightly macabre undercurrent present in both Pete’s work and the most memorable folktales from one’s childhood. The pieces become symbols representing opportunities taken or missed.
"Doors hold a lot of meaning,” explains Pete, "and not only as transitional points in people’s lives. There’s the inherent sense of nostalgia they bear. Plus, there’s the compelling suggestion of what may lie behind them."
"I believe that inspiration for good ideas is to be found in the most mundane places. It was a moment of clarity when I found a piece of wood in a corridor which had been used to work out maths sums, for doodling and the odd derogatory comment about someone's class mate. I liked the idea that these paintings are a sort of elaborate doodle of a school boy or girl’s dreams, hopes, and aspirations. In a child's mind, the possibilities are endless so with that thought I have tried to create images of obscurity where ordinary depictions of people and objects are put together to make up something out of the ordinary."
http://www.pete-hawkins.co.uk
http://www.pete-hawkins.co.uk
