Born in Oxford, England, and currently living in London, Sarah Cawkwell's art includes drawing, sculpture and printmaking. A discreet feminism runs throughout her art, celebrating the calm, anchoring qualities of the everyday domestic tasks women have always undertaken. For Cawkwell, "communicating feminist belief is not about the barricades or the avant-garde but about how people live their lives, the everyday."
In the last 5 years Cawkwell's art has progressed away from more figurative works, to art whereby the process is a larger factor. A noticeable influence has been American sculptor Eva Hesse, who utilised commercially produced materials such as wax, latex, rope and cloth, and for whom, says Cawkwell, "process was the only thing that mattered."
Cawkwell's recent works, like those displayed in the Currell Collection, have a strong stoic nature, paying respect to the many women, past and present, who have accepted and lived with the limitations of the female role in the domestic space. Mixing real with the illusionistic - buttons, hooks and thread are sewn into the painting and drawn image - Cawkwell builds her works painstakingly, letting the yielded image lead her hand.
Public collections include: Arts Council of Great Britain, Falmouth Art Gallery, New Hall, Cambridge, University College, Oxford, Wolfson College, Oxford, Detroit Receiving Hospital, USA.
Lit: Viv Lawes, 'Sarah Cawkwell: Drawing with Sculptures,' The Millinery Works, exhibition catalogue, 2013.
Artist website: www.sarahcawkwell.com