Zoe Hawk's work deals with the experience of girlhood, exploring themes of adolescent anxiety, feminine identity, social rituals, and belonging. Her characters inhabit their own worlds and act out their own dramas. She depicts tension between the need for individuality and a desire to fit in with peers through their clothing, which serves as costumes of feminine identity. The wild landscapes represent inner nature, contrasted by suburban spaces depicting the rigidity of society. Somewhere between childhood fairytales and the dark realities of womanhood, Hawk's characters play and navigate their social and physical environments.
Hawk was born in St. Louis in 1982 and went on to Missouri State University for her BFA in 2005, and her MFA in painting from the University of Iowa in 2011. Her work's been featured in publications such as New American Paintings, ArtMaze Mag (UK), and JOIA Magazine (Chile), as well as national and internation exhibitions. Hawk's been invited to artist residencies in Ireland, Norway, Belgium, and Qatar, as well as the Women’s Studio Workshop in Rosendale, NY. She is currently based in Columbia, Missouri.
