"Bay III" by James Hawke is a contemporary coastal painting that captures the energy and complexity of life at the water’s edge. Figures, shadows, reflections, and fragments of landscape are arranged in a vibrant composition where colour and form create a strong visual rhythm.From a distance, the work radiates the warmth and optimism of a day by the sea. Up close, it reveals a more layered reading: individual moments merge into collective activity, and strangers share the same shoreline while remaining absorbed in their own private worlds.Hawke’s flattened planes and interlocking shapes transform the bay into more than a literal location. The painting becomes a meditation on contemporary life, balancing movement and stillness, solitude and community, order and spontaneity. Light is central to the work. The coastal atmosphere intensifies the palette, reducing depth and giving the surface a mosaic-like quality that shifts between representation and abstraction."Bay III" is both a vivid seascape and a thoughtful reflection on observation, belonging, and the fleeting moments that shape collective memory.
The "Poolside Series" is a project that has dominated James Hawke’s work since 1998. Hawke searched through many thousands of photographs to find the exact right composition and balance of movement for these complex beach and holiday scenes. His work is influenced by twentieth-century travel brochures, questioning the semiotics of "perfection" presented through advertising.While the series began when Hawke was living in London (drawing from urban landscapes) and later Norwich, he now works from the Norfolk Broads and the work is heavily inspired by Ligurian culture and colour from his response to Villa Delle Peschiere in Genoa.The series captures the irony of how leisure imagery adapts to shifting cultural norms while leisure itself remains unchanged for millennia.