PETER HAWKESBY

At the end of 2020 Hawkesby relocated from Tāmaki Makaurau to Ōtepoti Dunedin. Having previously completed most of his work at the kitchen table, Hawkesby now finds himself enjoying the most well-appointed studio he has ever worked in. From a pair of rooms perched above a panel beater’s spray booth he looks out over the rooftops of this well-preserved Victorian city to an ever-changing sky-scape punctuated by chimney pots, the extra-large bell of the Bell Tea Building and the dalliances of local seagulls. This is the environment in which this exhibition has taken shape. The two distinctive components, vases and ‘heart baskets’, zig zag across Hawkesby’s oeuvre, reconciling divergent aesthetic tendencies; joining vessel and anti-vessel and reference points in lived experience.

Peter Hawkesby was born in Cockle Bay, Tāmaki Makaurau in 1950. Recent exhibitions include Scratch a Cenotaph (2018), MNVWZ Antics (2019) and Bone Thrones (2020) at Anna Miles Gallery, Dirty Ceramics, Dowse Art Museum (2019), Professor Tick & Company, McLeavey Gallery (2020) and Tender Brick: The Material Epiphanies of Peter Hawkesby, curated by Richard Fahey for Objectspace (2020) that toured to the Sarjeant Art Gallery Te Whare o Rehua Whanganui (2021) and CoCA Toi Moroki, Otauhahi Christchurch (2022). Hawkesby’s work is represented in public and private collections including those of Auckland Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira, Chartwell, Dowse Art Museum, MTG Hawkes Bay Tau Ahuriri, Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand and Tūhura Otago Museum.

Text courtesy Anna Miles Gallery