Today we’d like to introduce you to Laura Hunt.
Hi Laura, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My art career began at age 16 when I responded to a “Draw Me Talent Test,” an advertisement placed in a farm magazine by Art Instruction Schools in Minneapolis. It went on to include over 30 years as a graphic designer, although I managed to continue doing personal work in pastel portraits, cut paper illustration, greeting card design, and textiles. During that time, I honed my design skills for the practical purpose of marketing my clients’ businesses. My focus shifted in 2013 when I sold my business, affording me the time and space to concentrate on my fine art studio practice. Now, rather than creating to help market products and services, I create for the purpose of elevating the lives of those touched by my art.
I work in acrylics, mixed, and digital media. My focus has been on contemporary figurative work, but I have recently added landscapes and still lives to my repertoire.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It’s never a smooth road. Once my graphic design and marketing business took off in the 80s and 90s, I struggled to find the time and mental space to do fine art after hours, especially with the demands of a young family. Since returning to fine art in 2013, I faced the challenge of getting back into it, finding my voice, and learning the rhythm of the art community where I live. It has been not so much a struggle but more of a process that includes those things.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
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 it 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.
Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
AI will have an impact in both positive and negative ways. I think artists will learn to use AI as part of their processes without dumbing down their art, but I also think AI could cause the public to trust creative work less. What I hope is that work made by a human hand will be valued more highly.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://laurahuntart.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laurahuntart/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LauraHuntArt
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurahuntart/
Image Credits
David Wharton
