Deanna Hunt : Artist Statement

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The compelling motivations in my work are about how to navigate the human experience of constant change and transformation while finding home in the world of form. In a time of displacement, materialism and disconnection, I question how visual language might serve to [re]establish balance and cultivate compassion.

My belief in the power of connecting to nature as a way to shape society fuels my ongoing research, where I aim to discover-through drawing, painting and social practice- how to promote sustainability, preservation and appreciation for the natural environment. A lifelong study of Yoga informs and is informed by all I do. At the heart of my life and work is the practice of awareness and humility in the face of nature’s omnipresent power. How can the relationships of scale, shape, color, space and form in visual language awaken in the viewer/participant a recollection of his or her inherent interconnectedness and dependence on nature?

My practice involves immersing myself in nature daily while running, hiking, swimming and walking. I carry a sketchbook and camera with me, engaging in the world around me and meticulously exploring compositional strategies. I make hundreds of drawings and paintings. These small and intimate formats are like playing cards and puzzle pieces, readily accessible reminders of what is essential. Through larger scale works, sometimes extending across many panels, I explore ways to express my need to expand awareness.

Having lived in Rome for several years, the aesthetic influences of my work owe much to Italian art and the European landscape tradition. My work is equally rooted in the Bay Area movement and contemporary landscape painting. I attempt to reconcile the abstract nature of painting with its representational role while maintaining the emotive impetus for the subject. My visual choices explore how form embodies space and my own relationship to actual and pictorial space. Both cultivated as well as natural spaces provide the visual and experiential framework for investigation. Rather than a specific geographic location, my subject choices are generalized and aim to elicit a personal recollection of experience in the world.