LEVI HAWKEN

Graffiti Cube 2, 2020
cast concrete
500mm x 480mm x 480mm

Levi Hawken (b. 1975, Auckland, New Zealand) is an artist whose work is inextricably tied to the myriad influences that have shaped his life. From the urban subcultural worlds of skateboarding and graffiti, to working with concrete and nature, the frustrations, processes and potentials inherent in these activities have manifested their influence throughout his studio output.

Hawken began his artistic career painting graffiti in Auckland City during the mid-1990s, a very public gesture that is tied to the experience of urban space and its physical and social structures. The surprisingly regimented expectations of graffiti culture proved frustrating, as did the fleeting lifespan of works, subjected to challenges from the internal dissensions of graffiti and the inevitable public vitriol. While investigations of medium (favouring unfashionable house-paint over aerosol), postering (an approach all too aware of its own impermanence) and textural tags produced directly from paint tubes (resisting eradication through a scarification effect that remained visible after being covered in paint) all led to stylistic and material developments in his public exploits, eventually Hawken sought to reclaim his work by turning to the studio, where his paintings, drawings and eventually sculptural works retreated from the public forum, searching for the elusive longevity denied by the streets, and becoming, in the words of the artist, “keepsakes of the art that once was.” - Levi Hawken