We are all guilty of over-sharing these days.  Thanks to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Four Square, etc., the world has become privy to our innermost thoughts, what we ate for lunch, how many miles we ran that day.  We scoff at reality shows detailing the daily lives of the Kardashanians, Snookis, and Honey B00-Boos of the world.  We wonder, whatever happened to the allure of mystery?  UK artist Pam Hawkes reaches back into the iconography of illuminated manuscripts and Renaissance portraiture to cleanse our palate of the modernly overexposed.

The stillness and serenity of Hawkes’ figures are at such odds with how we live today.  The often classical poses reminiscent of religious iconography of the Virgin Mary and other figures may at first seem foreign to our contemporary eyes.  Yet there is a softness and vulnerability in these women, as if the ancient had come alive and found itself somehow wandering about our modern world.

There is a sense of bound freedom to Hawkes’ figures, as if they are only just discovering the door to their cage is open.  We wonder why they sit so still, resisting the temptation to be free.  Perhaps they, like us, have grown fond of their cages.

To see more of Pam Hawkes’ work, please visit her website— a great many gorgeous works to see there!

Artist found via artist Deborah Scott and POETSArtists Magazine.

All images are via the artist’s website.