Zoe Hawk is an American artist, born in St. Louis and currently living in Columbia, Missouri. Her work deals with the complex experience of girlhood, exploring adolescent anxiety, feminine identity, and belonging. The narratives depicted in the paintings are meant to be sweet and somewhat familiar to the viewer, yet upon closer inspection they take a mysterious or unsettling turn. Sometimes conveying innocence and curiosity, other times confronting uncertainty and fear, her work investigates both the wonder and distress involved in coming of age. The characters inhabit their own little worlds and act out their own dramas; their clothing signifies various modes of feminine identity, while backdrops of wild landscapes, institutional settings, and suburban spaces set the stage for the girls’ interactions. Somewhere between childhood and adulthood—between fairytales and the dark realities of womanhood—the girls engage in an intricate play of yearning, contention, camaraderie, and mischief, as they navigate their social and physical environments.