The late New Zealand-born artist and activist Alexis Hunter is known for provocative images that challenge expectations of gender and femininity.
Read MoreAlexis Hunter was born in Auckland, New Zealand, in 1948. Her family emigrated to New Zealand from Australia, later settled in Titirangi, a small town and artist enclave.
Along with her twin sister Alyson, Hunter enrolled at the Elam School of Fine Arts in 1966. She trained as a painter, tutored by New Zealand artist Colin McCahon, whose questioning approach to society, its structures, and the artist's role within both, inspired Hunter's later practice.
Following a stint in Australia, Hunter relocated to London in 1972 and joined the Artists Union Women's Workshop and the Women's Free Arts Alliance. These experiences deepened her commitment to the feminist theory and ideology that informed her art.
In London, Hunter started working in photography and film. She supplemented her artistic practice with work in advertising and the commercial film industry. Patriarchy and capitalism are prominent topics explored through her work.
Hunter's work across photography and film explores and inverts power through a feminist lens. Her depictions of the masculine body and physique subvert the male gaze and its objectification of women, drawing out the injustices in representation and control.
In the 1970s, at a time when many feminist artists were drawing attention to their bodies to explore agency, Hunter instead focused on creating a series of photographs that depicted and reacted to the male figure.
Her Object Series (1974–1975) features shots of men's bodies—exposed chests, waists, and tattoos—that are both intimate and depersonalising. Hunter posed her models in front of phallic symbols such as a cigarette, the World Trade Center, and elongated cowboy boots, addressing ideas around the male gaze, objectification, and eroticism.
Influenced by her work in commercial advertising, Hunter's photographs often included hands to evoke tactility and intimations of desire. This motif is especially prevalent in the photographic series 'Approach to Fear' (1976–1977), in which a manicured and jewelled hand accosts the subject across the series, disrupting gendered expectations of the ideal woman.
In Approach to Fear: XVII: Masculinisation of Society—exorcise (1977), the hand—dipped in black ink—smears pigment over repeated nude images of a muscular man from a magazine. In Approach to Fear XIII: Pain - Destruction of Cause (1977), a similar hand holds a burning silver high-heeled shoe.
Hunter was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in the early 2010s. She passed away in 2014. Today, her work is celebrated as a pillar of feminist art.
Alexis Hunter has exhibited widely in Australia, Europe, the U.K., and the United States.
Select solo exhibitions include Richard Saltoun Gallery, London (2021, 2013); Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art, London (2018); Norwich University of the Arts Gallery, U.K. (2006); Auckland City Art Gallery, New Zealand (1989); and Institute of Contemporary Art, London (1978).
Select group exhibitions include Kunstverein Amsterdam, Netherlands (2021); Nottingham Contemporary, U.K. (2018); The Photographer's Gallery, London (2017); Stavanger Art Museum, Norway (2016); MOCA, Los Angeles (2007); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2000, 1977); and Hayward Gallery, London (1979, 1978).
Alexis Hunter is represented by Richard Saltoun Gallery.
The artist's estate's website is here, their Instagram here.
Arianna Mercado | Ocula | 2024
