Artist's Statement - Laura Eisen Hunt

 

I paint the human figure and landscapes. Although they offer different opportunities for creative expression, they both engage me with the way light and shadow express form, emotion and the human experience. I’m drawn to the emotion expressed by the gesture of a hand or the tilt of a head, the long shadows cast by a barren desert mesa or the tough resilience of a scrubby tree. 

Whether I’m painting a landscape or a face, themes of melancholy, introspection, nostalgia, empathy and social issues bind the work together. Although my work has a naturalistic foundation, creating academically perfect work bores me. I prefer an expressive approach that is less about visual accuracy and more about a universal human experience.

It is often the play of light and shadow across a face or a hillside that first draws me in. I draw from life in a tiny sketchbook I keep handy to record interesting postures in waiting rooms, theaters and gatherings. I rummage through family photos to unearth grainy images of unidentified relatives and quirky strangers. I’m not above sneaking a snap of someone in a compelling gesture and adding it to my photo library. Friends pose for photo sessions to further fill my bank of references. My camera helps me to capture scenes and people of interest, whether traveling or near home. And sometimes pure imagination stimulates the creative process. All are at play in my search for the elusive or the iconic to express in a work of art.

I begin by digitally editing my photographic image, emphasizing contrast and simplifying shapes. The result becomes my reference, which is only a starting point. I work with acrylic paint on canvas or my favorite surface, cradled wood panels. I like their crisp corners, and how they feel like containers holding something mysterious and beautiful. After applying gesso to the surface, I cover it with orange, turquoise, or whatever feels right. That layer influences the overall presence of the painting, peeking through gaps to energize the work. Paper scraps or photo transfers sometimes find their way into the painting. And scraping paint right across an almost completed work contributes emotional content and shifts the subject from specific to universal. This last step in my process declares my love for abstraction and the paint itself. Even when exploring the past, I am seeing it through the a contemporary lens.

My influences include anonymous folk and tribal artists of Africa and the Americas, and the Abstract Expressionists. I deeply admire the figurative works of David Bates for its bold stylization, David Park for his confident expressiveness, and Catherine Kehoe for her mastery of simplification of the human figure. When I see their work, I feel affirmed in my direction as I seek my own version of those ideals.