Ponch Hawkes

Ponch Hawkes (born 1946) is an Australian photographer whose work explores intergenerational relationships, queer identity and LGBTQI+ rights, the female body, masculinity, and women at work, capturing key moments in Australia's cultural and social histories.

Hawkes was born in Abbotsford, Victoria, in 1946 and educated at University High School.

She is self-taught, having never formally studied photography.

Upon returning to Australia from the United States in the early 1970s, Hawkes, who was working as a journalist for the magazine The Digger, took up photography to enhance her journalistic work.

Hawkes has collaborated with the Pram factory and Circus Oz, and was the first administrator of the Women's Theatre Group in the 1970s.

Hawkes' photographic work is broad in its scope, including the portrayal of artists, feminists, sportspeople, public figures and candid street-photographs.

The photographs are often exhibited as a series or multiples, and the subjects in the work are often invited to actively participate in the process. Through this method, Hawkes pursues a sustained interest in the way individuals use their bodies and the way individuals relate, through their bodies, to each other.

Hawke's first exhibited body of work, the 1976 photo essay Our Mums and Us, featured her female friends and their mothers, among them the writer Helen Garner.

More recent projects have explored the ageing female body such as in the monumental work 500 strong (2021), that reclaims bodies from shame, empowers the subjects portrayed, and normalises images of older women.

Her work has been included in major Australian exhibitions such as Melbourne Now (2013) at the National Gallery of Victoria and Know My Name (2021/22) at the National Gallery of Australia.

Hawke's work is represented in the collections of numerous significant institutions including the National Gallery of Victoria, National Gallery of Australia, Queensland Art Gallery, State Library of Victoria, City of Melbourne, Horsham Regional Gallery, Monash Gallery of Art, the Women's Art Register, and the Jewish Museum of Australia.

The under-representation of women in politics is explored in the humorous work Changing Faces: Reframing Women in Local Democracy (2020), that depicts 171 local women wearing fake moustaches and beards to challenge gender stereotypes.

Hawkes' extensive career is considered an influential part of the Australian feminist art movement.