Robert P. Hawkins

In Hawkins’ paintings, one is first captured by the refined flat tints of colour, the power of light. In his desire to structure the canvas, he operates an incessant dialectic between planes, light and drawing. Space, background, form. Everything is linked and everything fits together. Quite simply, because behind an apparent banality, we can guess the essential. By dint of forgetting, of eliminating superfluous details, the landscape is purified and becomes the object of a rigorous work of abstraction which aims at a valorization of volumes in space. The result: a skilful geometry of lines is organised in such a way as to create a serene and colourful balance. Even the appearance of an anonymous little character is only a figurative pretext to structure the composition of the painting. Hawkins likes things to be in their place. This place inhabited by absence where all the elements are present invites us to go further than a simple glance towards an invitation to travel. Whoever looks at them feels concerned by what they say, says silently. Hawkins appropriates the subtle values of the representation of the world.