Fragmented Memories is an exploration of the human experience of recollection, time, and personal identity. Often referred to as Fragmented Memories through Novel Experiences, the collection marked a pivotal phase in which Hook sought to reinterpret his own work from an entirely new perspective, as if he were someone else.
The series uses a palette of misty morning greys, soft lunar silvers, and twilight blues to create forms that suggest figures caught in a web of recollection. Hook focuses on the broken image — shapes that are not definitive but yield to personal interpretation, reflecting how memories often surface in fragmented, non-linear ways. Through subsequent layers of transparent paint, he captures the moments that occur between events and the fluid nature of passing time.
The collection includes both large-scale oils and original drawings, spanning portraits of some of the most recognisable figures Hook has painted — Alan Cumming, Amir Khan, Mick Hucknall, Fabrice Muamba, Sue Johnston, and the Duchess of York, alongside equine subjects and deeply personal works. Titles like Adagio, Allegro, and Transition suggest a musical influence, linking the tempo of life to the rhythm of memory, while pieces such as Unnatural Selection bridge Hook's interest in Darwinian evolution with the subjective nature of human experience.
Within the arc of Hook's career, the series represents a shift inward. Where the Darwin Series focused on the physical evolution of species, Fragmented Memories turns that lens on the evolution of the self through remembered experience, an intimate and deeply layered body of work that remains one of his most celebrated.
2015 · 31 works
Adonis
