Allison Hunter

American, 1967 -

MFA 1997 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Graduate Studies, Fine Art/Women's Studies, University at Albany, NY http://www.allisonhunter.com/Art/current.html Bio Allison Hunter is a visual artist who over the past twenty years has worked in photography, performance, video, painting, drawing, and installation. Hunter earned her first MFA at the Cantonal Art School of Lausanne, Switzerland (1990), and her second MFA at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York (1997). Hunter participated in video and sculpture art residencies at institutions such as the Banff Centre for the Arts in Calgary, Canada and the Hermit Center for Metamedia in Plasy, Czech Republic. Hunter’s installation project, titled SIGNMAKERS (1998-2003),was commissioned by three European sculpture centers in Lithuania, Latvia, and Finland, and by the 2003 Kingston Sculpture Biennial in New York. Hunter’s photographs are collected by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the University Art Museum at SUNY, the Albany Institute of History and Art, and the Center for Photography at Woodstock. Her work has been included in numerous exhibitions in the U.S. and Europe, including at the Kohler Center (Wisconsin), Arthouse (Austin), and in solo exhibitions at Women & Their Work (Austin), Artspace (North Carolina), and DiverseWorks (Houston), 2010. In addition to practicing art, Hunter has participated in the art community as an educator, writer, and art administrator. She taught computer art at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and at the University at Albany (SUNY). She has written and edited texts on visual art and design for national publications such as HOW and Sculpture. Hunter was Executive Director for the Houston Center for Photography (2005-06), Artistic Director for De Santos Gallery (2004), and Curatorial Assistant at the Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery (2001). She lives in Houston, Texas. Statement I am interested in making people think about how they perceive and respond to elements of the world around them that are often marginalized or overlooked. I approach this problem in my art work by taking things out of context to show their beauty, grace, and uniqueness. My effort is not to add but to remove elements from the original image to allow the viewer to focus more intently on the process of displacement and reinterpretation. For example, when I photograph living creatures in zoo environments, I frame the scene with the camera and later edit out background information in order to create a sense of mystery that evokes questions from the viewer. My interest in non-human animals stems in part from my background in feminist art and feminist theory, where I first understood how sexism is linked to speciesism. I approach my animals and their re-location in virtual environments as a way to exercise a desire for a better world, one where humans treat all living beings with equal care.