Raising awareness through sculpture with artist Rebecca Hawkins

Introducing new artist Rebecca Hawkins

Rebecca trained at Central Saint Martins and City and Guilds of London Art School and spent a number of years doing apprenticeships with prominent sculptors and engineering firms, learning how to mould, cast and weld. She works in clay, wax, Bronze, bronze resin, copper, and both mild and stainless steel. Her drawings are rendered in charcoal, often including or drawn on gold leaf.

Increasingly through her sculpture, Rebecca is working on projects that highlight humanitarian issues which celebrate the strength of the human spirit, and the importance of freedom to thrive. In 2008 she worked with the Esther Benjamins Trust, Nepal, setting up a sculpture workshop to provide therapy through the art of making for victims of child trafficking. Public commissions have included The Gurkha, in Folkestone town centre; for which she was shortlisted for the Marsh award for excellence in public sculpture, and The Mother and Child which was commissioned to raise awareness for a stigmatised group of Vietnamese women and children called the Lai Dai Han. 

Lai Dai Han 'The Mother and Child'

In 2017 Rebecca was commissioned to design and create a sculpture as part of an international campaign to highlight the plight of the Lai Dai Han in Vietnam, a group of women and children stigmatised by the result of sexual violence in the Vietnam war. The 2 metre bronze took 4 months of building from metal structure to being modelled in clay. It was unveiled in Church House, Westminster in 2019 and is currently in St James's Square, London, speaking on behalf of  women and children who are victims of sexual violence in conflict around the globe.

At its heart, this sculpture is inspired by the strength of the mothers and the bond of love between a mother who has given everything to bring up and protect a child born to her through a violent and traumatising assault.

The sculpture is designed as two trees growing together, ensnared by a strangler fig which is a metaphor for the mental and physical binds which have ensnared these women as victims of rape in war. The sculpture has discarded bits of wood and bark imbedded in it to signify the way in which they have both been treated by Vietnam and South Korea.

Lai Dai Han Mother and Child . Photo credit: Pierce Belmont

Rebecca manages to make her sculptures come alive; they breathe feelings and emotion. Rebecca is able to do this because of her own deep commitment to fighting the many injustices which are the causes behind her pieces, and because she is brilliant at telling human stories through bronze."

​— Rt Hon Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary 2001-2005, Lord Chancellor 2007-2010.

Petrified Survivors

Rebecca now spends the majority of her time on bespoke story telling and awareness work for campaigns, charities, and private commissions. Follow her here to see her latest work 'Petrified Survivors' due to be revealed at The Hague in June. Cast at Talos Art Foundry, Petrified Survivors is the first global memorial for survivors of sexual violence in conflict and has been designed and created with support from over 35 different organisations and in collaboration survivors from over 30 different countries.

Backflip Girl by Rebecca Hawkins pictured above will be on show at Talos Summer Exhibition 2025.