Alexis Hunter facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Alexis Hunter
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| Born |
Alexis Jan Atthill Hunter
4 November 1948 Auckland, New Zealand
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| Died | 24 February 2014 (aged 65) London, England
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| Nationality | New Zealand |
| Alma mater | Elam School of Fine Arts |
| Known for | Photography, painting |
| Movement | Stuckism |
| Spouse(s) | Baxter Mitchell |
Alexis Jan Atthill Hunter (4 November 1948 – 24 February 2014) was a New Zealand painter and photographer, who used feminist theory in her work. She lived and worked in London UK, and Beaurainville France. Hunter was also a member of the Stuckism collective. Her archive and artistic legacy is now administered by the Alexis Hunter Trust.
Early life
Hunter's parents emigrated to New Zealand from Sydney in 1947, and she was born in Epsom, Auckland. Her twin sister is the printmaker and photographer Alyson Hunter. Hunter was raised in Titirangi in the Waitākere Ranges in Auckland.
Education and career
From 1966 to 1969, Hunter studied at Elam School of Fine Arts, where she was influenced by a tutor Colin McCahon's ethics that the artist has responsibility as a member of society. In 1970, she lived in a commune in Cairns. In 1971, she completed a teaching diploma in art and history.
In 1972 she moved to London and worked in film animation. She was a member of the Women's Workshop of the Artists Union (1972–1975) and the Woman's Free Arts Alliance. She has said that during this time of her feminist stance, "We were ridiculed in the press. We couldn't get work", and that she also found it difficult to get photo labs to print her work.
She started to study European tattoos, after listening to a lecture at the Royal Academy, which described them in a belittling way; she said, "I was angry because I know from New Zealand culture that tattooing was a very important part of Maori social structure." She took photos in the street of men with tattoos and received sexist accusations, which she rejected.
She used the image of hands in her work. Images in the series, The Marxist Housewife (Still Does the Housework) (1978), show a manicured hand cleaning a poster of Karl Marx, referencing both class issues and Marx's lack of recognition of domestic labour in his writing. The series Identity Crisis consists of six photographs of Hunter, each taken by a different person over a two-week period, showing how they saw her, ranging from the feminity of wearing a pearl necklace to a defiant stance wearing a hard hat.
She also photographed men, in common with feminist practice of the 1970s, to reverse the traditional position of men's visualization of women.
In 1978 her photographic exhibition Approaches to Fear was staged by Sarah Kent, who was then Exhibitions Director at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. That year she showed at the Hayward Annual, in 1979 at the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, and in 1981 at the Summer Show 2 at the Serpentine Gallery, London. She was included in Contemporary Acquisitions (The Imperial War Museum, London, 1981), Mythic Landscapes and Memory Series (Totah Gallery, New York, 1984), Whitechapel Open (Whitechapel Gallery, London, 1987), Alter/Image: Feminism and Representation in New Zealand Art 1973-1993 (City Gallery Wellington and Auckland Art Gallery, 1993–1994), Fantasy (Touring: United Arab Emirates and England, 1994), and Technomyths (Whitespace Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand, 2002). She showed work in group shows at the Stuckism International Gallery in 2003. In an interview with Lisa Sabbage, she explained how she returned to painting in the early 1980s to explore the political difficulties of the medium, using it to examine psychology and fantasy from a feminist perspective.
A revival of interest in early feminist art led her in 2007 to stage a show of older work, Alexis Hunter: Radical Feminism in the 1970s, shown at the Norwich Gallery, England, and at the Whitespace Gallery in New Zealand. Kathy Battista in Frieze said the show, "situated her practice as an important contribution to Britain's feminist movement within the visual arts." Hunter said:
"In the 1970s we felt empowered to change society, and thought we could do so by making art. People now don't feel that, and they want to learn how we did it.
In 2007, her work was also included in WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), Los Angeles. In 2008, she founded the Camden Stuckist group in Camden, London.
In 2013 her work Approach to Fear XIII: Pain – Destruction of Cause 1977 was purchased by the Tate Gallery.
She lectured at art schools in the United Kingdom and other countries and in 1986 was visiting Associate Professor of Painting and Photography at University of Houston, Texas.
Personal life
Hunter was married to ex-rugby player Baxter Mitchell, who owned The Falcon Theatre and Jazz Bar in Camden, which supported independent bands such as Blur in the 1980s.
Legacy
The reputation of Alexis Hunter has continued to grow since her death in 2014 through a series of exhibitions and public purchases:
2016 - exhibition at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. The Model’s Revenge
2018 - exhibition with publication at Goldsmiths, University of London
2021 - purchase by the Tate Approach to Fear XVII - ten photographs mounted in two rows on two boards
2022 exhibition The Margate School Passionate Instincts: paintings and boards from New Zealand days 1976 - 1988
Work in collections
Hunter's work is represented in the Tate Modern, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, University of Otago and the Arts Council of Great Britain collections.
See also
- Sarah Kent
- Mary Kelly
- Lucy Lippard
- Feminist Theory
