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Tom Hunter Biography
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‘His seductive, colour saturated works, many based on Vermeer’s paintings, expose the myriad situations and living conditions of his sitters, through meticulously planned, dignified, portraits.’ Jean Wainwright
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In 1998 Tom Hunter was awarded the John Kobal Photographic portrait prize for ‘Woman Reading a Possession Order’, an image of a young woman standing at a window reading an eviction notice with a baby at her side. The photograph is part of a series of work using the community of squatters in Hackney with whom Hunter is familiar, and which he titled ‘Persons Unknown’. This work directly references Vermeer’s ‘A Girl Reading at an Open Window’, using both its composition, colour and play of light to produce an image that, as with Vermeer’s representations of the Dutch working class, ennobles his subjects.
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Hunter’s concern with the political issues surrounding the right of ‘squatters’, ‘travellers’ and all those viewed as ‘outsiders’ is reflected in his choice and treatment of his subjects. In 1998 while travelling himself around Europe, Hunter began a new series of portraits entitled ‘Travellers’, which focused on the domestic environment of this nomadic group. Hunter has since based his photographs on compositions of British 19th Century Pre-Raphaelite paintings and from 2003 has engaged more directly with current affairs producing a series of works based on headlines from his local newspaper, The Hackney Gazette, some of which reference old master paintings.
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Born in Bournemouth in 1965, Hunter studied at The London College of Printing and The Royal College of Art, London. He has exhibited at The National Portrait Gallery, London (1998); the Whitechapel Open, The Tannery, London (1998) and in Neurotic Realism (Part Two), Saatchi Gallery, London (1999), and has had solo exhibitions at White Cube, London (2000), Manchester City Art Gallery, Manchester (2002), Frans Hals Museum, Haarle (2003), Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York (2003) and Domus Artium 2002 Museum, Salamanca (2004).
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