Barbie Ascot Hat

Credit: The Daily Mail Online

I attended Ladies Day at Ascot and decided to create my own hat for the occasion.  The creation featured three of my zombified Barbies from my 'corruption of childhood innocence' project alongside seven headless, unclothed Barbie dolls attached to a plain black base with red ribbon.  The zombified Barbies wore smaller toy horses in their hair to act as fascinators, to go with the theme of Ascot.

Barbies are often viewed as an unrealistic ideal of the socially constructed standards of beauty for women.  Women at Ladies Day are expected to present themselves very properly to meet these standards of beauty.  My intention of wearing this hat at Ladies Day was to subvert the expectations of women's beauty.  The dolls represent a sense of corrupted childhood innocence as children grow up with these dolls and these ideas of what beauty is and as they grow older they realise how impossible these standards are to meet.  The bloodied dolls represent the lengths some women will go to to make themselves beautiful.

There are strict rules for clothing at Ladies Day and unfortunately my hat did not meet their criteria due to it 'promoting a brand', being 'gimmicky' and 'inappropriate' due to the nude and disfigured dolls.  This meant I was not allowed to wear the hat inside the gates of the event, which was very disappointing.  However several photographs approached me outside the gates and asked for photos of the hat, meaning it was features in several online news articles.

The Daily Mail

The Sun

Online Nigeria

The World Times

Iltalehti (Finnish)

Self Portraits

Spidey-Chaz, Chaz Howkins, 2016, fine liner

Dot Selfie, Chaz Howkins, 2016, fine liner and markers

Fisherman Selfie, Chaz Howkins, 2016, fine liner

Formal Selfie, Chaz Howkins, 2016, fine liner and oil pastel

Digital Selfie, Chaz Howkins, 2016, fine liner

A series of self portraits, all of which took under 2 minutes to complete.  I wanted the portraits to be fairly minimalistic so only introduced colour when I felt it was absolutely necessary.  These drawings are taken from a series in which I explored my own vanity and narcissism.

Typography Experimentations

Dear America, Chaz Howkins, 2016, pen and coloured pencil

Miss EU Already, Chaz Howkins, 2016, coloured pencil and fine liner

I've been wanting to experiment with typography so decided to create some topical drawings based on recent events.

Does It Matter? Leicester Exhibition

After my Does It Matter? Exhibition in Loughborough, I was approached by Trade Sexual Health, a Leicester based LGBT sexual health charity, and asked to bring my exhibition to their office.  As the exhibition took place in their office space, it was a one night event so as not to be too disruptive to their work.  The exhibition was highly successful as it drew in a more diverse crowd compared to the Loughborough exhibition which was attended mainly by Loughborough students.

Zone Magazine Article

I was very happy to be featured in the June edition of Zone Magazine in the lead up to my solo exhibition in Leicester.

Not My Cup Of Tea exhibition

Photograph by Faith Berry

I participated in an exhibition alongside 22 other artists, I chose to exhibit The Death of Childhood as it was an older piece which I had yet to exhibit publicly.