Breathe (2020) by Hoagy Scoins in Auckland

Mixed media on canvas. “Highly commended”, Homiens prize winter 2026. I painted this amidst the 2020 lockdowns in Auckland and the Black Lives Matter protests. It captures the sense of suffocation and overwhelm many felt at the time, reflecting on a period of global restriction and shifting power dynamics. My process involved using face masks as stamps to create a textured undercoat in face-mask blue. I then painted a mouth, tilted 90 degrees, before layering the work with acrylic paint using a combination of brushwork and rollers to create a sense of depth and atmospheric pressure.