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Alexis Hunter was born in Auckland, New Zealand after the emigration from Australia of her parents. She was taught by Colin McCahon and Garth Tapper at Elam, Auckland University, graduating with Honours in Painting and Art History. In 1970 after travelling on a Dunedin University Art Award she experimented with living in communes in the Northern territory of Australia. Hunter joined the Feminist Art Movement through the Artist’s Union soon after arriving in London and also participated in feminist exhibitions in New York in the 1970s. Hunter invented a method of relaying feminist theory to viewers through the device of sequential photography, which was called The Approach to Fear Series. These early works are now being shown at International Art Fairs by the Richard Saltoun Gallery in London and are in the collection of Te Papa National Gallery of New Zealand and other Museums. In 1981 Hunter began a series of large symbolic paintings on mythology and contemporary issues, influenced by artists such as William Blake, Turner and the writer scientist James Lovelock. Hunter paints images about the struggle between human psychology, technology and nature. These works are exhibited now by the Whitespace Gallery in Auckland and the Stuckist Movement in Europe. Alexis Hunter's work has figured in many significant group exhibitions; these include The Hayward Annual, Issue and The State of the Art 1987 and lately Live in Your Head: Concept and Experiment in Britain, Whitechapel Gallery, London, in 1989 the Auckland City Gallery mounted the Retrospective Fears/Dreams/Desires of both her photography and paintings. |
