Into The Deep 2022

Curator: Zoe Hawk’s "Into the Deep," painted in acrylic in 2022, presents a staged scene at a swimming pool, rich in visual tension and thematic suggestion. Editor: It gives me an uncanny feeling, almost like a still from a David Lynch film—these synchronized swimmers poised to dive into a disturbingly calm pool. Everything is so perfectly, coldly, balanced. Curator: Coldly balanced? I find that intriguing. Given that Hawk's background incorporates elements of craft and design, and acrylic's own industrial production… well, does this material aspect of the painting process itself contribute to this "coldness"? Editor: Possibly. Acrylic, being so synthetic and easily molded into consistent colors, flattens and simplifies things here, making everything smooth, perfect, somehow inhuman. Unlike oils that give softness and glow. I wonder what kind of conversations were going on between Hawk and her chosen media while crafting this uncanny scene? Curator: I see the utility and choice of materials, the deliberate simplification. Note the numerical divisions, marking a calculated segmentation of the space. How might the artist, by emphasizing spatial control and uniformity through such choices, be drawing our attention to systems of measurement or institutional structures? Is Hawk positioning her art practice in the context of, say, swimming culture and associated modes of production and spectatorship? Editor: Perhaps the repetition hints at an assembly line: bodies prepped for display. Then one wonders about the water's symbolism, is it the oblivion from our social theater? Curator: Precisely. Her work invites us to ponder how societal conventions might shape behavior or affect modes of expression and representation, particularly for female bodies in constructed social spaces like the pool environment. Editor: You make a point! That one solitary girl diving is set in sharp contrast against those perfectly posed automatons, no? The individual is jumping into her subconscious against the rigid collective? This picture feels like the opening act of an existential thriller now! Curator: That kind of personal reading certainly illuminates additional avenues for interpretation of both the narrative and materials. A rich dialogue. Editor: Indeed. Made me re-evaluate my own… pool antics. Let's just say my backstroke doesn’t involve anywhere near that kind of grace!