Artist Statement / Bio
Artist Statement:
I strive for my paintings to reside in an uneasy calm, halfway between a photograph and a memory.
Nominally, my work depicts what nature does to what man creates. By implication, as much as anything, my work bears witness to the cynical hollowing out of rural and small-town America by interests concerned solely with material wealth.
The imagery of iconic photographers such as Lange or Evans resonate with us in manner similar to the paintings of Edward Hopper, Joseph Stella or Franz Kline. All, however, reside in our collective aesthetic, what we think of when we think about visual language.
Manipulating paint with a window washer’s squeegee or impressing the pattern of paper towels into a painted surface to evoke the halftone screens and ben-day dots of classic photographic reproduction, my work plays upon familiar visual tropes that (one hopes) the viewer notes almost subconsciously. Concurrently, the thin, semi-transparent paint film allows quasi-random mark-making to appear almost photographic in detail.
My aspiration is that the limited palette, near monochromatic nature of much of my work is analagous to the stripped-down writing of Carver or Hemingway, attempting to create imagery that is pared to sinew and bone.
Biography:
Charlie Hunter was raised in rural New Hampshire and Vermont, the son of a small-town printer, and graduated cum laude with a BA in Art from Yale University. He worked as a graphic designer and artist manager in the music industry, creating scores of tour posters for acts such as The Clash, REM, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Bob Dylan and the Jerry Garcia Band and managing acoustic artists such as Chris Smither and Dar Williams. Since 2003, his company, Roots on the Rails, has organized music trains across the US, Mexico and Canada. Hunter now works full-time as a painter, and exhibits at galleries and museums across America.
Notable Collections:
Jonathan Edwards College, Yale University, New Haven, CT
Noble & Greenough School, Dedham, MA
Coca-Cola Bottling Company, Northampton, MA
Collection of Rachel Maddow and Susan Mikula
Collection of Logan Mankins
Preservation Trust of Vermont
Chesapeake & Ohio Historical Society
Press:
NEW ENGLAND HOME, Winter 2021-22, "The Storyteller" by Robert Keiner
LANDSCAPE PAINTER'S HANDBOOK, Mitch Albala, Hatchette Press, 2022
LANDSCAPES IN OIL, Ken Salaz, Monacelli Press, 2019
SOUTHWEST ART, "10 New Painters", January, 2019
ARTISTS ON ART, "Landscape Painting or Rotting American Portrait?", January, 2019
ARTSCOPE, November, 2019
Recent Exhibitions and Awards:
SEMAPHORE, Brattleboro (VT) Museum and Art Center, June-October 2021
2020 Ruth and James Ewing Art Award
I strive for my paintings to reside in an uneasy calm, halfway between a photograph and a memory.
Nominally, my work depicts what nature does to what man creates. By implication, as much as anything, my work bears witness to the cynical hollowing out of rural and small-town America by interests concerned solely with material wealth.
The imagery of iconic photographers such as Lange or Evans resonate with us in manner similar to the paintings of Edward Hopper, Joseph Stella or Franz Kline. All, however, reside in our collective aesthetic, what we think of when we think about visual language.
Manipulating paint with a window washer’s squeegee or impressing the pattern of paper towels into a painted surface to evoke the halftone screens and ben-day dots of classic photographic reproduction, my work plays upon familiar visual tropes that (one hopes) the viewer notes almost subconsciously. Concurrently, the thin, semi-transparent paint film allows quasi-random mark-making to appear almost photographic in detail.
My aspiration is that the limited palette, near monochromatic nature of much of my work is analagous to the stripped-down writing of Carver or Hemingway, attempting to create imagery that is pared to sinew and bone.
- Charlie Hunter
Biography:
Charlie Hunter was raised in rural New Hampshire and Vermont, the son of a small-town printer, and graduated cum laude with a BA in Art from Yale University. He worked as a graphic designer and artist manager in the music industry, creating scores of tour posters for acts such as The Clash, REM, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Bob Dylan and the Jerry Garcia Band and managing acoustic artists such as Chris Smither and Dar Williams. Since 2003, his company, Roots on the Rails, has organized music trains across the US, Mexico and Canada. Hunter now works full-time as a painter, and exhibits at galleries and museums across America.
Notable Collections:
Jonathan Edwards College, Yale University, New Haven, CT
Noble & Greenough School, Dedham, MA
Coca-Cola Bottling Company, Northampton, MA
Collection of Rachel Maddow and Susan Mikula
Collection of Logan Mankins
Preservation Trust of Vermont
Chesapeake & Ohio Historical Society
Press:
NEW ENGLAND HOME, Winter 2021-22, "The Storyteller" by Robert Keiner
LANDSCAPE PAINTER'S HANDBOOK, Mitch Albala, Hatchette Press, 2022
LANDSCAPES IN OIL, Ken Salaz, Monacelli Press, 2019
SOUTHWEST ART, "10 New Painters", January, 2019
ARTISTS ON ART, "Landscape Painting or Rotting American Portrait?", January, 2019
ARTSCOPE, November, 2019
Recent Exhibitions and Awards:
SEMAPHORE, Brattleboro (VT) Museum and Art Center, June-October 2021
2020 Ruth and James Ewing Art Award