Paul Hunter - Artist Statement

Luminosity is the underlying theme of my work.

Imaginary landscapes are the central subject of my work. My landscapes focus on the light at the horizon where the sky meets land and water, and is complexly reflected, refracted and sublime. Working from memory,  I seek to capture light’s ephemeral fleeting radiance and to express awareness of time’s evanescence. 

Throughout the decades I have created paintings, sculptures, and drawings that depict light and its transcendence. By painting on reflective surfaces such as gold leaf and copper with translucent and transparent layers of acrylic I allow the underlying light to emerge and radiate outwards.

From minimalist seascapes and urban landscapes to completely abstract meditative compositions to carved wood and hammered copper, my explorations include: 

An extended series of Luminous Landscapes painted on gold and metal leafed canvasses. My interest in painting on gold, copper, and aluminum leaf does not lie in the value of the precious metals, but in the unique quality of the reflected light that emanates from them. I paint directly onto these gleaming surfaces with acrylic paints to create an intensely evocative radiance.

The Libretto series of paintings and drawings is far more abstract, featuring multiple layers of lines, each drawn  through a layer of wet transparent paint. These etched lines allow the intensive glow and energy of the underlying gold and metal leaf to reflect outwards. The gently undulating variations and linear rhythms of the lines create a sensation of calm. Merging reading, writing and painting, these works invite contemplation and suggest a musical score.  

In the Confinement Gardens series, developed during the Covid-19 pandemic, I found solace in New York City’s parks and gardens. The springtime bloom inspired a new series of paintings that evolved from the nonfigurative Libretto compositions, into which I began inserting  imaginary floral and leaf forms. Also painted on aluminum leafed canvasses, the light reflecting through the etched lines expresses the generative power within nature.

The carved wood sculptures in my Timber series translate my earlier minimalist landscape paintings into sculptural form. Also inspired by light and nature, these works, sculpted from construction lumber, strive to express the inner strength and expansive potential of the original trees. Working with my deceased father’s tools, I carve deep into the planed lumber following the grain of the wood in search of the branches enclosed inside the beams to free the tree within. The wood is stained and the knots where the branches were amputated, are sealed in luminous 23 K gold leaf.   

My Copper series of hammered low reliefs hang on a wall. Forming the copper sheets feels like sculpting directly into light as I pound the metal to raise, elongate and imprint textures onto its surface. Though their overall compositions are abstract, these low-reliefs suggest topographies, rock formations or oceanographic swells. These sites evoke pristine vistas in the tradition of Romantic landscape painting, while also calling attention to our increasingly chaotic climate and the thin crust of the earth. 

Born in Paris to Canadian parents, I grew up in Quebec City, earned a BA there at Laval University and a MFA at Concordia University in Montreal, before moving to New York City, where I continue to live and work in my Harlem studio.