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Hawkins - Great Falls Tribune 3-20-10.pdf
Big Sky Journal - Arts 2008.pdf
International Fine Art Collector - 1991.pdf
Biography
Rocky Hawkins was born in 1950 in Seattle, Washington and grew up in small towns near the Cascades Mountains. His interest in the mystery and spiritual element of the Indian culture began with childhood. Traveling with his family to historic locations that conveyed Native American history, he was taken with the beauty and mysticism of the Indians individual expression. After finishing high school, he enrolled in college art classes then later attended the Burnley School of Art in Seattle. His art career began with illustration and commercial art but he found it didn't fulfill his creative need and desire for self-expression. This realization led to his introduction into the world of fine art painting. His search to connect more closely with Native American inspiration has led him to reside in Montana.
Enthralled with the lore and spirituality of American Indian cultures, his work often depicts these traditional subjects in nontraditional ways. Hawkins captures the raw sense of elements - natural, emotional and cultural. Raw anger. Raw sorrow. Raw vision. And that is a mysterious thing to explain, but even more mysterious to behold. Unlike the classical approach of most Western artists, Rocky Hawkins asks a bit more from each of us who stop to admire one of his paintings: trust.
Hawkins often begins with a small study that becomes a catalyst for his larger pieces. He is quick to point out that he is not a storyteller-his concerns are not about where a horse is going or how fast it is running, he explains. But he is interested in the texture of the painting's surface, the relationships of colors, and expressing a feeling about what he sees. Hawkins looks to the Abstract Expressionists as kindred artistic souls-Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, and others. Within his Abstract Expressionist images, Rocky Hawkins paints with the gesture of water, the translation of its sound, the suggestion of it, so that a viewer may not see, but will likely sense the flow of the element in a painting.
Artist Statement
“My paintings are about expressing a visual experience that challenges and communicates with a sense of mystery. Mystery is a human trait and curious characteristic where not everything is easily explainable.
I begin each painting with a journey into the unknown, where getting lost becomes the answer to which direction to take. I find the moment I’m lost is when I really discover the enjoyment of painting and who I am.
I start by making gestures with colors and shapes, adding and subtracting abbreviated images and embracing the unpremeditated. At times I use automatism, that is, drawing or painting in the subconscious with no preconceived composition in mind.
I use my innate passion for abstraction with fragmented strokes and color resulting in a glimpse of what might be. My early education in art school and with realist painters has given me the creative ability to weave in partial realism when I feel it works with a particular piece.
In my most recent work I am exploring my interest with the shape and color of the natural world, the entanglement of antlers resulting in abstract shape and texture and the fasciation with repetition and patterns.
As a painter of fine art, I am in a constant state of challenging myself in technique, subject and mediums. By allowing myself to not be afraid to grow, I can take that necessary risk and journey of self discovery.
Most of the time I use either oil or acrylic but some of my work is an assemblage of painting, my own photography, cut outs, journal pages, newspaper, fabric, and other applications. It is a process that I have embraced since my early days in art school. Other times it is simply about the paint and what I can do with it.”
Recent Shows and/or Exhibitions
INTO THE WEST: THEN & NOW - solo show - Altamira Fine Art- Jackson WY - June 17-July 1 2024
The 13 Truths - Solo Show Altamira Fine Art- Jackson WY - June 2024
Deep Time Wanderers - Solo Show - Altamira Fine Art - Scottsdale AZ - February 2024
Mini Masterpieces- Group Show - Gallery Wild Santa Fe, N M - December 2023 2024
Odyssey-H - Solo Show - Altamira Fine Art Jackson Wyoming - February 2023
Mountain Standard Time-group show -Visions West Contemporary - June 2019,20,21,22,23
Big Sky Art Auction – March 30, 2019, 2024
Rocky Hawkins was born in 1950 in Seattle, Washington and grew up in small towns near the Cascades Mountains. His interest in the mystery and spiritual element of the Indian culture began with childhood. Traveling with his family to historic locations that conveyed Native American history, he was taken with the beauty and mysticism of the Indians individual expression. After finishing high school, he enrolled in college art classes then later attended the Burnley School of Art in Seattle. His art career began with illustration and commercial art but he found it didn't fulfill his creative need and desire for self-expression. This realization led to his introduction into the world of fine art painting. His search to connect more closely with Native American inspiration has led him to reside in Montana.
Enthralled with the lore and spirituality of American Indian cultures, his work often depicts these traditional subjects in nontraditional ways. Hawkins captures the raw sense of elements - natural, emotional and cultural. Raw anger. Raw sorrow. Raw vision. And that is a mysterious thing to explain, but even more mysterious to behold. Unlike the classical approach of most Western artists, Rocky Hawkins asks a bit more from each of us who stop to admire one of his paintings: trust.
Hawkins often begins with a small study that becomes a catalyst for his larger pieces. He is quick to point out that he is not a storyteller-his concerns are not about where a horse is going or how fast it is running, he explains. But he is interested in the texture of the painting's surface, the relationships of colors, and expressing a feeling about what he sees. Hawkins looks to the Abstract Expressionists as kindred artistic souls-Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, and others. Within his Abstract Expressionist images, Rocky Hawkins paints with the gesture of water, the translation of its sound, the suggestion of it, so that a viewer may not see, but will likely sense the flow of the element in a painting.
Artist Statement
“My paintings are about expressing a visual experience that challenges and communicates with a sense of mystery. Mystery is a human trait and curious characteristic where not everything is easily explainable.
I begin each painting with a journey into the unknown, where getting lost becomes the answer to which direction to take. I find the moment I’m lost is when I really discover the enjoyment of painting and who I am.
I start by making gestures with colors and shapes, adding and subtracting abbreviated images and embracing the unpremeditated. At times I use automatism, that is, drawing or painting in the subconscious with no preconceived composition in mind.
I use my innate passion for abstraction with fragmented strokes and color resulting in a glimpse of what might be. My early education in art school and with realist painters has given me the creative ability to weave in partial realism when I feel it works with a particular piece.
In my most recent work I am exploring my interest with the shape and color of the natural world, the entanglement of antlers resulting in abstract shape and texture and the fasciation with repetition and patterns.
As a painter of fine art, I am in a constant state of challenging myself in technique, subject and mediums. By allowing myself to not be afraid to grow, I can take that necessary risk and journey of self discovery.
Most of the time I use either oil or acrylic but some of my work is an assemblage of painting, my own photography, cut outs, journal pages, newspaper, fabric, and other applications. It is a process that I have embraced since my early days in art school. Other times it is simply about the paint and what I can do with it.”
Recent Shows and/or Exhibitions
INTO THE WEST: THEN & NOW - solo show - Altamira Fine Art- Jackson WY - June 17-July 1 2024
The 13 Truths - Solo Show Altamira Fine Art- Jackson WY - June 2024
Deep Time Wanderers - Solo Show - Altamira Fine Art - Scottsdale AZ - February 2024
Mini Masterpieces- Group Show - Gallery Wild Santa Fe, N M - December 2023 2024
Odyssey-H - Solo Show - Altamira Fine Art Jackson Wyoming - February 2023
Mountain Standard Time-group show -Visions West Contemporary - June 2019,20,21,22,23
Big Sky Art Auction – March 30, 2019, 2024