Starting April 26 and running till May 25 is a fascinating new show, by painter Pete Hawkins, that gives us a glimpse of what's behind closed doors. At The Outsiders Gallery in London, you'll find these stunning scenes that have all been painted on old, worn out doors discovered in the British countryside. Notice that while in one, a white dress wearing young girl dispatches any army of soldiers, in still another, an adolescent female sits on a swing suspended by a lion-shaped doorknocker, trying to break through a mysterious portal.
“Doors hold a lot of meaning,” explains the artist, “and not only as transitional points in people's lives. There's the inherent sense of nostalgia they bear. Plus, as children's writer C S Lewis knew only too well, there's the compelling suggestion of what may lie behind them.”
Notice that in each work, just as important as the painting is the actual door and what it represents. As the gallery states, the doors end up “representing opportunities taken or missed.”
