This week we introduce British-born painter, Anthony Hunter. Born in Preston, Lancashire, Hunter graduated from Leeds Metropolitan University in 2009 from the ‘Contemporary Art Course’, where he worked collaboratively on painting and performance with his twin brother, James Hunter. Having since firmly established himself as a contemporary painter and emerging British artist ‘to watch’, Anthony Hunter describes abstract painting as something he has been interested in from his early years as an artist, drawing inspiration from painters such as Mark Rothko and Gerhard Richter.

For Anthony Hunter, the process of painting is something that must always be enjoyed, and this mantra is reflected in the distinctive energy and movement to each painting. Once an artist’s assistant for Damien Hirst, and working on his now infamous spot paintings, the repetitiveness and rigidity of this work, was far from the way Hunter wanted to paint himself - with freedom, fluidity and fun.

Hunter’s works could be described as purely abstract painting. With no references to specific objects or scenes, Hunter paints instinctively, with his focus on the paint and the painting process itself. Working primarily on boards laid out horizontally in front of him, Hunter will start a painting with no preconceptions, allowing the process to take control and shape the final results.

“I like not knowing what is going to happen…I get excited and a bit nervous before I make a painting, and that’s when you know it means something to you.” - Anthony Hunter

Pouring paint directly on the board, Hunter uses the very physical technique of scraping, rolling and almost attacking the paint on the surface. Using a high gloss paint that has a particular flowing and levelling property, Hunter’s works all have a distinctive reflective shine to them, emphasised by his bold use of colours often applied in heavy slabs, but also rolled or scraped to allow under-layers to manifest.

Hunter’s physical and instinctual approach has often led to his work being likened to the action painting of Jackson Pollock, an American 20th century painter and major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. Indeed, there are areas of his work that utilise the dramatic blobs, dots and splashes of paint seen in Pollock’s work, and like Pollock, Hunter will expend a lot of energy in the physicality of his painting. However, there is more to Hunter’s paintings than purely spontaneous actions. While he describes his work as instinctual, there is also a considered style and approach throughout Hunter’s process. As well as creating large fields of colour, Hunter also accents each painting with blobs and drips of paint that appear to have a life of their own, weaving and dancing on the surface of the painting. Yet Hunter carefully considers the placement of these seemingly random elements - thinking about each mark or line, where it is placed, its size and colour. While he does not plan his paintings before he creates them, they are never completely unintentional. This can be a confusing dichotomy when considering Hunter’s work: they are experimental as well as designed, spontaneous whilst also considered - a kind of controlled chaos.

Anthony Hunter’s two unique works being released through Eyestorm this week. Lovely blue square on red background with a nice white blob in the bottom left corner painting and Lovely Red Pink Square on Top of Blue, How do you do? Painting were worked on and completed by the artist in the same space at the same time - a process that allows one painting to play off the other. These new works are characteristic examples of Hunter’s current pure abstract work, with clear influences to one of his favourite artists, Mark Rothko, seen in the large planes of colours and borders of colour around the edge. The two paintings have opposite colour schemes, and when placed side by side, the works appear as kinds of colour studies,with one work affecting the outcome of the other.

As with all his works, Hunter uses subtle wit when naming the paintings. These somewhat trivial titles are descriptive and matter-of-fact, with just a hint of Hunter’s wry humour thrown in. They in fact, only further enforce the pure abstract nature of the works, with Hunter not disguising his paintings as anything other than what they are - a white dot is a white dot, a red square is a red square. Taking away any other possible interpretations, viewers are asked to focus on nothing more than the shapes, the colours, and of course, the paint itself.

To find more information about the two paintings, which are available at $4830.00, please go to Anthony Hunter’s artist page here.