Stuart Hawkins

Stuart Hawkins utilizes partially staged photographs and videos to document and ironically emulate American media culture. Working with friends in Nepal, where she periodically lives and works, Hawkins engages the image of the Western tourist abroad. In her photographs, her subjects imitate poses and project themes from globally-recognized American popular culture, calling attention to embodied signifiers of the power dynamics between developed and developing nations. Her videos mimic the format of infomercials or sitcoms, matching their bizarre humor with serious critique of globalized lifestyle ideals. In her most recent work, Hawkins increasingly references both art's role as a luxury commodity and its traditions of modernist design aesthetics.

Hawkins received her MFA from New York’s School of Visual Arts. Her work has been show in solo exhibitions at Quality Pictures in Portland, Oregon and at New York’s Artists Space. She is the recipient of a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grant, an Aaron Siskind Fellowship Grant, a Rema Hort Mann Art Grant, and an American Institute of Photography Fellowship. From 2013 to 2014, Hawkins was the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Workspace On-Site Assistant. She lives and works in Nepal and New York City.