HUNTOPIA - Catalog - Page 15
IN T RODUC T ION: HUN T ’S REINC A RN AT IONS
A
ntique Christian saints married
with modern Pagan mystics—
silhouettes of erect-eared bunnies
multiplying across walls—weathered
top hats united with abandoned brothers—grayed mirrors
reflecting fresh, dazzling visions—assorted candlesticks
arranged in decorative armies—legions of tropical
birds and monkeys’ heads—anonymous and signed
pictures from centuries past coupled with those
of the artist, Hunt Slonem …
These are just some of the sight-delights to behold when
we enter Hunt’s “deco-exotic” realm, where time
seems suspended in a lush world of old and new, nature
and artifice, substance and color. Walking into
HUNTOPIA, we might feel like Alice transplanted
through the looking-glass; like an intruder surrounded
by unseen ghosts past, present, and future; or like
the unwary witness to an impending party staged for
as-yet-to-arrive guests, flamboyant denizens from the
Capitol in the popular film series The Hunger Games.
Hunt began as a painter (inspired early on by numerology
others from the past—in comprehensive and dramatic
to change his last name from “Slonim” to “Slonem”),
makeovers, or what we might call reincarnations,
and he continues to practice painting, along with
of plantations and mansions situated from Louisiana
sculpture, printmaking, and textiles. However, the artist
to New York. Added to these are the artist’s similar
appears at his happiest when his creativity can expand
transformations of the 1897 Scranton Armory in
to conjoin his own creations with all kinds of
Pennsylvania, and his own massive studio space now
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