ZOE HOARE

ZOË HOARE ARTIST STATEMENT March 2026

Zoë Hoare completed BA and MA in Fine Art at City and Guilds of London Art School in 2016 and since then she has continued to exhibit in London.

At first glance, this series of sculptural relief work appears metallic, as though it is a composition of physical volumes cut into or sculpted onto a surface, but the reality is something entirely different.

This work originates from a paper sculptures that were cut, physically fixed to the wall with staples, and then photographed. The photograph is not treated as documentation but as a material in its own right which is further physically manipulated by cutting and folding. It is further mediated by placement behind frosted Perspex, creating a surface that softens, diffuses, and partially denies visual access.

The colour of each piece is an almost natural palette that stems from the iterative process of cutting, photographing, printing on tracing paper, then re-cutting and layering. Through each step in the process another shade or layer of colour settles on top of the one before it.

This exploration of the fragile quality of paper, alongside material translucency, creates ethereal and glowing pieces. Their three-dimensional physical forms allow for the works to take on a life of their own with the subtle and unhurried changing of daylight.

Zoë looks to establish an uncanny harmony between the destructive technique of cutting and the often-delicate outcomes which emerge. This playful and inquisitive process is at the core of her practice, continuously favouring the act of discovery over that of representation. The act of discovery is delayed, slowed, through the gap in understanding between the surface appearance of a work and its underlying structure. In turn, we are encouraged to contemplate and reflect.

The pieces may appear caught in time, with the fragility caught in an act of holding in place. Whilst the frosted Perspex suggests protection, containment, or erasure. What remains visible is an impression rather than a clear image: forms that appear to press forward but are held back, suspended between emergence and concealment. The work explores fragility, control, and the transformation of objects through acts of fixing and obscuring.

Similarly, to cutting into paper Zoë treats oil paint with the same manner. Oil paint mixed with liquin is applied before scraping away with rubber ended chisels to leaving only the essential marks and transparent fractured spaces. This technique causes gaps and disruptions in the paint due to direction and chance. The liquin dries fast which adds an urgent and honest approach. As the paint is moved with the rubber chisels in a manner similar to drawing around the surface of the canvas, it gets pushed to the side of the tool leaving a sharp line of residue and a smooth transparent faded layer of colour beneath. The narrow pools of intense colour act as the tiny shadows of the larger glass-like shapes.

Gradually the painting’s own logic starts to form. There is an ambiguity created in the layering of transparent hot and cold shards that could be interpreted as a cross-section for something larger. Similarly, to the sculptural relief works the painting’s deceiving fragility gives it a temporary quality, seeming ever changing in a state of flux, just caught in a moment in time with the possibility to drift away or dissolve.