Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner in 1993
American • 1951
Brooklyn-based artist Hunt Slonem grounds his work in the act of painting. Having spent a lot of time in various parts of the world—including Hawaii, California, Louisiana and, most importantly, Nicaragua—because of his father's job as navy officer, Slonem uses the sunny landscapes of his various homes to bring tropical hues into his work. He is most famous for his meshy representations of tropical birds, but overall, Slonem takes wildlife as focal subject and features the same animal countless time within a single large-scale oil painting.
It's the repetition in Slonem's work that makes his paintings so imposing. As the years progress, Slonem's depictions of nature do too. In the past, his paintings featured wild animals but, since the turn of the century, Slonem has started to explore notions of domestication, encaging his animals within nature much like humans are encaged within society. Other popular motifs that Slonem has painted in repetition include bunnies, butterflies and flowers.
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