Levi Hawken is a New Zealand artist/sculptor, who started his career covering walls in Auckland City with graffiti during the mid-1990s. Most of his graffiti work is no longer visible, yet its influences remain in his more traditional paintings. Over the last decade, his work has shifted from the city’s public forum of walls and spaces to a more private and standard setting, in a backlash to the removal and vandalization of graffiti. Hawken has expanded his medium and subject matter through painting, drawing and sculptural work to ensure more permanent keepsakes of his art.

Hawken now works mainly with concrete, creating voids through his pieces, which are often influenced by Brutalism, urban architecture and a desire to express an appreciation for the universe’s unknown force. His range of ‘False idols’ represents gods that have not yet been invented and converted into religions. Our Modern Shapes Editions of Hawken’s work seek to embody the contradictory ideas, unresolved dynamic elements and contradictions of the artist’s work.

Levi Hawken was born in 1975 and is based in Tamaki Makaurau/Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand. He has a background in design, graffiti, and street art.