Chris Hawtin

 

Chris Hawtin creates narratives that do not follow conventional sequences of events; his work is reminiscent of a post apocalyptic scenery inhabited by science fictional machines; hybrids constructed or grown from organic and mechanical parts. Their personalities interact with the various characters that they share their habitat with. The characters/beings appear in different landscapes in different works to create and recreate personal stories that interact with each other dependent on the viewers interpretation. Hawtin uses computerised imagery and sometimes sound waves as his starting point, woven with painting and sculptural processes he ‘wraps and re wraps’ creating hybrid worlds of ‘in-between’ states.

 

Chris is making new work in response to the questions raised in the symposium which will be exhibited at the event. His amalgamation of digital with paint is current and directly related to the topics we aim to explore.

 

Chris Hawtin's work explores the relationship between organic and cybernetic structures, and the effect of technological acceleration on geographic space. Giant floating machines or vessels hover above a more traditional romantic landscape in a fusion of genres, while a signpost adorned with the disembodied head of some strange character announces the title of the work, suggesting the presence of some kind of sci-fi narrative for the viewer to unravel. Working with 3d scans and architectural modelling programmes as well as paint, Hawtin's work becomes a hybrid of the technological and the organic. The digitally generated structures are a brutal interruption within the paintings yet they are subsumed into the language of the painted surface, playing with the classic science fiction image of the alien invasion.

 

Born in Ely, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom in 1974 Chris Hawtin has exhibited widely both nationally and internationally. His work is in private collections worldwide and in the Saatchi Collection in London.

 

 

 

www.chrishawtin.com

 

Saatchigallery.com

 

 

 

The event is presented in association with The University of Suffolk