Wali Hawes (India/Japan)

“In the five years I knew Wali in Japan I became  particularly aware of, and immensely enjoyed, his capacity to incorporate language into the process of his work. The words help suffuse the pieces with possibilities of reference and feeling, as if a play is at work between the relationships between concrete objects and supposed essences. There is a strong generative  quality in his work, especially when seen together, a lush almost jugular quality. Beyond the  boy-girl range in colours, typically there is the prevalence of boy-girl associated shapes and sizes as well-his bits are big, protrusive, unabashedly hard and erect, strong phallic sizes and shapes almost in search; and hers-oral, bulbous, at times cavernous, numerous receptacles and curvaceous roundness. Sure, this is fun and sexy, and the thing that stops it being merely showy and smug is the lovely sense of craftsmanship. Wali seems almost to be saying, "but you`ll find ultimately that the hand that lovingly makes/shapes you is the one that the pleasure also in the end returns to." We are in good hands.

John Gereats a poet from Auckland, New Zealand, writing about Wali Hawes.