ALEXIS HUNTER
ARTIST, CURATOR, EDUCATOR
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︎ about me
Alexis Hunter is an identity-based, multidisciplinary artist currently living and working in Austin, TX. She earned her BFA from Texas State University in Studio Art, with a concentration in painting, graduating summa cum laude (2022). Recent solo and group exhibitions include INVASIVE SPECIES, ICOSA Collective Gallery, Austin, TX; Own it, examine it, and confront it head on, DORF, Austin, TX; Collective Thoughts, Antenna Gallery, New Orleans, LA; and SBMRPVII, the Carver Museum, Austin, TX. She was selected to participate in Big Medium’s LINE Residency (2022), vol. 2 of the George Washington Carver Museum's Small Black Museum Residency Project (2022) and, most recently, Mass Gallery’s Hot Box Residency (2023). Alexis is a member of the artist-run collective, ICOSA, and a painting instructor at The Contemporary Austin's Art School at Laguna Gloria. She was named The Austin Chronicle’s Best Visual Artist of 2023 and was a finalist for Big Medium’s 2023 Tito’s Prize.
Her work explores self-image through racial identity, mental health, the female body, and the male gaze.
"I use sculpture, painting, performance, and social practice to constantly push myself to my limits to deliver bodies of work at their most honest and vulnerable state. My current project, HAVEN’T I GIVEN ENOUGH???!!, challenges the policing of women’s bodies under the patriarchy and the misogynistic history of the world. HAVEN’T I GIVEN ENOUGH??!! is informed by several factors, one of them being my life-long insecurities about my own body and how I see that experience intersect with social constructs like western beauty standards and fatphobia.
My inspiration and references I use in my practice range from literature and dissertations like Dr. Karis Campion’s, “You think you’re Black?” Exploring Black mixed-race experiences of Black rejection, Ethnic and Racial Studies”, to the technique and concepts of biracial contemporary artists making their own identity-based work, like Jennifer Ling Datchuk or Sasha Gordon. HAVEN’T I GIVEN ENOUGH?!! was inspired by kaiju, a Japanese media genre involving giant monsters, and movies like, Merian C. Cooper’s King Kong, Honda Ishirō’s Godzilla, and Nathan H. Juran’s Attack of the 50 Foot Woman.” ︎
Her work explores self-image through racial identity, mental health, the female body, and the male gaze.
"I use sculpture, painting, performance, and social practice to constantly push myself to my limits to deliver bodies of work at their most honest and vulnerable state. My current project, HAVEN’T I GIVEN ENOUGH???!!, challenges the policing of women’s bodies under the patriarchy and the misogynistic history of the world. HAVEN’T I GIVEN ENOUGH??!! is informed by several factors, one of them being my life-long insecurities about my own body and how I see that experience intersect with social constructs like western beauty standards and fatphobia.
My inspiration and references I use in my practice range from literature and dissertations like Dr. Karis Campion’s, “You think you’re Black?” Exploring Black mixed-race experiences of Black rejection, Ethnic and Racial Studies”, to the technique and concepts of biracial contemporary artists making their own identity-based work, like Jennifer Ling Datchuk or Sasha Gordon. HAVEN’T I GIVEN ENOUGH?!! was inspired by kaiju, a Japanese media genre involving giant monsters, and movies like, Merian C. Cooper’s King Kong, Honda Ishirō’s Godzilla, and Nathan H. Juran’s Attack of the 50 Foot Woman.” ︎
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