Richard Hawkins

Richard Hawkins’s solo exhibition—his eighth at Greene Naftali—follows desire where it leads, in twin pursuit of art historical fandom and the lure of the celebrity crush. The paintings on view pay tribute to the work of Pierre Bonnard, as Hawkins filters the late Impressionist’s touch through his own hand and boy-crazy obsessions. The new works channel Bonnard’s caressing eye and the reckless hedonism of his color, producing what Hawkins calls "faulty, poetic translations" of his sources.

Hawkins takes Bonnard interiors and landscapes as prompts to loosen those genres from their genteel moorings, studding his lush, dappled gardens with floating faces of pretty young men. The artist lays his kink pastorals with "captivation traps"—passages of heightened detail that snare the viewer's attention, perverse and arresting.

Richard Hawkins lives and works in Los Angeles, where he is Professor at the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena. Other significant solo exhibitions have been held at Tate, Liverpool; Le Consortium, Dijon; and the Art Institute of Chicago, which traveled to the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. Hawkins’s work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Art Institute of Chicago; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others.