 Back to Nature, Figure 1, 2006 Charcoal on paper, 26 x 26 3/4 inches Scott Hunt The Tender Land Goff + Rosenthal is pleased to present the first solo exhibition of New York-based artist Scott Hunt. Born in Ossining, New York Scott Hunt has been a successful commercial illustrator contributing to publications such as the Atlantic Monthly, the New Yorker, Esquire, Harpers and others. He has exhibited his drawings in numerous group shows in Brooklyn and New York and recently completed the illustrations for a collection of short stories inspired by his drawings to be published by Dutton this spring. To make his drawings, Hunt scours flea markets for discarded snapshots and then borrows elements from these anonymous pictures - a figure, a bit of architecture, a family pet or lawn ornament - and invents a new narrative around which he constructs the drawing. The casual and found nature of Hunt's source material allows the artist to imbue the drawings with intensely enigmatic and mysterious subject matter. The viewer encounters a vision of America that is at once sympathetic, humorous and apocalyptic. Hunt's influences are diverse: Edward Hopper, Charles Addams, Henry Darger, Balthus, Joyce Carol Oates and Robert Frank among them. Say's Hunt: "Having attempted to tame and harness nature, we (especially we Americans) mistakenly believe we are its master. At the heart of this breathtaking arrogance lies a wealth of bitter and hilarious irony that I've tried to tap into in many of these drawings." The exhibition of charcoal-on-paper drawings in "The Tender Land" reflect Hunt's preoccupation with the ways in which humans have become increasingly divorced from the natural world and the ways we create facsimiles of nature that conform to lives increasingly lived in the sanitized sprawl of suburbia and cities. The title of the exhibition, is borrowed from the Aaron Copeland opera of the same name and, says Hunt, "suggests the fragility of the ecosystem that sustains us and the tenuous thread that ties our future to its survival. It also reflects the idea that the human spirit is similarly fragile and that the landscape of our emotional lives can be forever altered and reshaped by our experiences and through the behavior of others." Exhibition: April 1 - 29, 2006 Gallery hours: Tues-Sat 11 am - 6 pm Goff + Rosenthal Gallery 537B West 23rd Street USA-New York, NY 10011 Telephone +1 212 675 0461 Fax +1 212 675 0534 www.goffandrosenthal.com |
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