Hirschl & Adler Modern is proud to present The Land is a Body, Colin Hunt’s second solo exhibition with the gallery. The show will feature ten new paintings in egg tempera accompanied by a selection of watercolors.

In Colin Hunt’s new paintings, myriad tiny rocks, grains of sand, and strands of rockweed form a coastal beach, while lush forests pierce a crystalline sky. Elsewhere, palpable mists set a mysterious tone. The outlines of shapes seem to appear—and disappear—into the landscape. We want to know: where is this? Or, more importantly, what is this? The answer is not so easily found.

Amid all their painted specificity, these works depict anywhere and everywhere. Likewise, their “subjects” are someone, or anyone, something, or anything. While deftly combining the traditions of portraiture and American landscape painting, Hunt veers from the conventions of each. Neither person nor place, these new paintings in egg tempera and in watercolor sit, as the artist states, “at the crossroads of memory, loss and ecology.”

The Land is a Body, the artist’s second solo exhibition at Hirschl & Adler, expands upon previous themes of passage and memory, with the recognition that environments—the land itself—also hold memories and experience loss. In these new works, not only do the paintings refract figures and their relationship to place but suggest how the landscape might do that as well, encompassing not only human time, but earthly time. For Hunt, painting the intricate details found in the natural world allows him to explore light, and its corollary, time, while embracing that which is transient and mortal.

Hunt cites his deep admiration of early Renaissance paintings of the Sienese School, in which the natural and spiritual worlds collide, as inspiration for choosing to paint in egg tempera. Save for a few notable artists including Thomas Hart Benton, Andrew Wyeth, and George Tooker, rarely have American artists from the 20th century to the present embraced this challenging and unforgiving medium. The slow and methodical process of mixing fresh pigments each day and applying countless strokes of layered, translucent glazes are techniques perfected during the Renaissance by artists seeking to elevate artistic expression to a higher plane of meaning. The same methods align perfectly with Hunt’s inclination toward drawing and the metaphysical ideas in his work.

Because they are not direct portraits of person or place the subjects (rocks, trees, figures) are held up as vessels of memory and love, representing past, present, and future. As such they are genuine expressions of healing and solace; reminders of the indelible connection between humans and nature; and hopeful evidence that despite the ubiquitous reality of loss, the impression life leaves behind endures.

Colin Hunt (b. 1973) received his MFA from Columbia University and his BFA from Cooper Union, both in New York. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in numerous museums and galleries, including the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, TX; Teckningmuseet, Laholm, Sweden; The Brooklyn Museum, NY; The National Academy of Design, New York, NY; Triumph Gallery, Moscow, Russia; Mother Gallery, Beacon, NY; ZieherSmith, New York, NY; Artist Space, New York, NY; White Columns, New York, NY;  and Vox Populi, Philadelphia, PA. In 2011, he was the inaugural resident at the Galveston Artist Residency in Galveston, TX. His work has been featured and/or reviewed in a number of publications including New American Paintings, The Brooklyn Review, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. Colin Hunt divides his time between Brooklyn, NY and Waldoboro, Maine. This is his second solo exhibition with H&A Modern.