Hunt received a Diploma in Art from the University of ManitobaSchool of Art in Winnipeg in 1982 and was awarded the first Gissur Eliasson Memorial Scholarship for her studio work. She completed her post-graduate studies with an MFA focused on Fibres at Concordia University in Montréal, Québec in 1994. From 1995-1996, Hunt taught at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario. Between 1997 and 2001 she taught at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. Hunt has taught in the Visual Arts Program, Grenfell Campus of Memorial University of Newfoundland in Corner Brook in 1996-1997, and from 2001 to 2018. In a November 2013 talk given for the Wendy Wersch Memorial Lecture Series at MAWA in Winnipeg, entitled We are all of us made by war...., Hunt described how her grandmothers made quilts and her mother taught her craft.
Style and Influence
Hunts style can be described as domestic, yet rebellious. Each piece has turned classically domestic mediums into hard-hitting, thought-provoking works of art. Her Art focuses on war, the natural environment, mourning rituals, and most predominantly, her work concentrates on gender ideals, stereotypes, and traditional roles. Much of her influence comes from the textile traditions and cultural aspects of textiles from her home of Newfoundland. Many works also feature a form of juxtaposing contradicting elements, thoughts or cultural stereotypes. By using domestic materials to talk about issues that are far out of reach of the everyday ideal housewife, Hunt brings these issues into the everyday world and involves everybody in these issues.
Career
Hunt has had solo exhibitions at the Art Gallery of Ontario, The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery and at Exeter and Bath galleries in the UK. Her work has been included in group exhibitions and biennials both national and international. She has also completed residencies throughout Canada, as well as Paris and Ireland. A core focus of Hunt's practice has been the devastation of war. and creating works from camouflagearmy uniforms. Hunt's 2010 Land Mines series documented the proliferation of antipersonnel landmines through hand knitting replicas in various shades of pink yarn. The work draws on the history of knitting as caring for the body and the use of knitting to create bandages for soldiers. In this context knitting becomes a metaphor for recuperation, protection, and healing, creating a contrast between the materials and the destructive subject matter. The work was included in the group exhibition, Museopathy, at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre in Kingston, Ontario, and later in a solo show named Antipersonnel at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Her work included in the exhibition Unpacking the Living Room serves as a material protest against the use of antipersonnel landmines. As Hunt describes “I use these associations to contradict the abuse of power and the use of violence by transforming a destructive object into one that can do no harm.” In Toll, her 2011 solo show at The Rooms in St. John's, Newfoundland, she created large installations using camouflage fabric as a central theme and material. Hunt's Mourning series was a textile-based exploration of the relationships between death, mourning, gender and recuperation.
Permanent collections
Central Museum of Textiles, Poland
Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Canada Council York Wilson Purchase Award, Kingston, ON Canada
