'Voids and Sorrows'
Rozanne's Hawksley's work is not easy to embrace since her objects convey and communicate demise, loss, mourning and commemoration. With her interest in the human condition she invites us as individuals and as a society to contemplate the taboos surrounding 'dying' and 'death'. Although many of us have experienced personal and collective loss we may have been disturbingly uncertain in our reactions and in our grip of our own humanity. Rozanne draws upon her own encounters and memories, paying homage to deceased family members as well as fallen servicemen and women of World War II and more recent conflicts.
Voids and Sorrows is investigating questions about art, anthropology, ritual and religion. How do we understand and relate to 'the dying', their suffering or the sudden death of a loved one? This exhibition has a number of challenging themes: Symbolism & Mysticism; Personal & Collective Loss, Ways of Witnessing Death and, finally, Commemorative Eulogies. Hawksley’s vivid works tell of our fragility, transience and pain, showing what one cannot speak.
Rozanne Hawksley was born in 1931 in Portsmouth. She studied at Southern College of Art, Portsmouth, qualifying in 1951; the Royal College of Art, (Fashion School), ARCA 1954; and Goldsmiths College, Advanced Postgraduate Diploma, 1980. She has exhibited widely and is a preeminent and internationally recognized artist.