Suzanne Hocknell

Within her practice, Suzanne Hocknell draws on the more-than-words nature of the arts to create hesitations in the mundane rhythms of social norms. In ‘Sheltering from View?’ Suzanne engages with self-portraiture to trouble notions of refuge. The piece explores autistic masking as a strategy that, whilst defending the self from the norms of the world in the now, causes long-term trauma to the autistic individual. In the painting, the viewed surface of the figure is distorted, blurred and distressed, yet the figure remains defiant, their eyes are lively, hinting at a complex interior world beyond the imaginings of allistic framings.