Hunt Slonem: New Paintings
"Profuse. Profound. Transcendent. Jubilant. In his life as in his art, Hunt Slonem is all of these things and more."—Dominique Nahas, art critic and curator, The Worlds of Hunt Slonem
SAN FRANCISCO, CA (April 28, 2015) –Serge Sorokko Gallery is pleased to present new work by internationally acclaimed painter Hunt Slonem. The exhibition will open to the public on May 15 and run through June 20, 2015.
Spontaneous and obsessive, Slonem's paintings render a fantastic paradise filled with exotic birds, animated rabbits and swarms of butterflies. Throughout his forty-two year career, he has infused the color saturated and iconic immediacy of Pop Art with the physical and emotional aspects of Abstract Expressionism. Slonem combines elements of drawing and gestural abstraction in compositions infused with visceral energy and recognizable subjects.
An avid collector of birds, Slonem rescues them, giving them starring roles as the subjects of his paintings. With the deft hand of a bas-relief sculptor, Slonem applies his paint onto canvas; the thick impasto providing an impression of the stiff architecture of Parrot wings, the bright camouflage-like patterns mimicking the Lorrie's bristling feathers, and the soft geometric arrangements outlining the silky silhouettes of his Finches.
Also on view are his paintings of Rabbits, which the artist fondly refers to as "Bunnies." Born in the year of the Rabbit, Slonem begins every morning painting his Bunnies in a nod of respect for Chinese Astrology. With the passionate gesture of a Zen Master, each picture possesses the signature of the artist, as evidenced through the fluidity of his singular line. His 2014 monograph, "Bunnies," published by Gliterati featuring his unmistakable and enigmatic Rabbit paintings, highly sought after by collectors around the globe.
Hunt Slonem is also the subject of a new book and forthcoming exhibition, "Hunt Slonem: Paradise." It marks the premiere presentation of his paintings in Russia, the result of collaborationbetween the Russian Academy of Arts and the Serge Sorokko Gallery. The exhibition will open at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art on September 28 and will remain on view through November 5, 2015. "We are very proud of this exhibition," says Gallery owner Serge Sorokko, "The Russian Academy of Arts and the Serge Sorokko Gallery foster those talents that are ignited by taking up and going beyond traditional values, making ideal and complementary partners in this joint undertaking."
Hunt Slonem (1928) lives and works in New York and Louisiana. His works have been exhibited in more than 350 galleries and museums worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and The Whitney Museum of American Art, in New York City. He has received numerous honors and awards, including a MacDowell Fellowship and National Endowment for the Arts Grant. Slonem's paintings have been the subject of numerous books, documentaries and hundreds of magazine and newspaper articles.
Born in Kittery, Maine, Slonem studied painting and art history at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee (1969-70); Universidad de las Américas, Cholula, Mexico, (1971); the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculp-ture, Maine (1972); earning a Bachelor at Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana (1972-73); and Baniff School of Fine Arts, Alberta, Canada (1973).
