For lifelong artist Pete Hocking, memory is instrumental to his work, both in the way it is created and the way it is beheld and experienced. Hocking has spent most of his life wandering the beaches and forests of Cape Cod, the last twelve years as a permanent resident. It was remembering walks he took with his parents as a child that sparked his love for the Cape Cod National Seashore. And he hopes that same feeling is captured by others.

Says Hocking, “Instead of someone looking at my work and saying ‘Oh, that’s Sunken Meadow Beach,’ I want them to say, ‘This reminds me of a trip to the beach I took ten years ago.’” 

And Hocking accomplishes this with an almost magical potency. Through his sweeping dunes and deep waters, the viewer can imagine themself transported to the very spot being captured. Hocking’s use of oils for his canvases, he says, is an ode to the connection between oil paint and nature, the former being made of seed oils.

Hocking has been creating art since his youth. After 25 years spent teaching at universities like Rhode Island School of Design and Goddard College, as well as working in social activism and public engagement, Hocking’s work became a more serious focus. He has since lent his teaching abilities to the Cape community, leading workshops at the Truro Center for the Arts, the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, and the Fine Arts Work Center, as well as private workshops and lessons. A self-described lifelong learner, Hocking focuses on individualized study and practice with his students, as they range in age from their twenties to their golden years with varied levels of experience.

Hocking says, “I tell all of my students, ‘If you came here to paint like me, you’re in the wrong place. I’m here to help you paint like you.’”

Hocking often works on many projects at a time in his studio. Smaller canvases of four-by-six inches are used to “test out ideas,” which he then translates onto larger canvases, often three-by-three feet.  

“I learn something new from every painting,” says Hocking. “When I figure something out in one painting, it often solves something else going on in the studio.”

When creating art seems challenging, Hocking reflects with a simple question: “Am I finding the poetry in my work?” While there is constant beauty to be found across the Cape and Islands, he examines whether his documentation honors the emotion, the feeling of the place? 

His best advice for visitors and residents of the Cape is to journey more outside of their town’s bubble. Otherwise, Hocking would have never found the places he represents in his work. “We live in a very unique place,” he says. “Look for the places people never go to. Drive one more beach down. Walk that extra half a mile. It’ll rock your world.”

Hocking is represented by AMZehnder Gallery in Wellfleet. His exhibits this summer will be Memorial Day Weekend and Labor Day Weekend 2025.