Jim Hunter Exhibition at Sandy Hill Arts

Jim Hunter Exhibition 29th June-14th July

An exhibition of recent watercolour paintings made around the landscape of the Isle of Purbeck by acclaimed local painter, Jim Hunter, Emeritus Professor of Painting at AUB and member of the Royal Watercolour Society.

Jim Hunter was born and grew up in Co Durham and first attended art school at the then Teesside College of Art. He studied painting at Winchester School of Art from 1970-73, with William Crozier as Head of Fine Art and John Bellany an influential tutor, and graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1976. In many ways the most significant period of study for him was the time he spent in a studio in the Cite des Arts, Paris: from this period grew his enduring interest in modernism and the potential of abstraction.

Throughout his career in art education, retiring as Deputy Vice Chancellor of Arts University Bournemouth to be Emeritus Professor of Painting, he maintained his practice as a painter and exhibited regularly. He was pleased to be elected a full Member of the Royal Watercolour Society in 2018.

His home and studio are in the Isle of Purbeck and his work is often based on direct responses to this unique landscape. He draws also upon his travels to places as different as Japan, India, Venice and Hydra,Greece.

‘I often paint and draw in the landscape. This has been an habitual practice for me throughout my career, from my student days to now when I make extensive use of sketchbooks while walking and drawing in the surrounding landscape of my studio in the Isle of Purbeck.This particular landscape of cliffs and stone quarries is often the subject of my paintings. When working outdoors I like to use watercolour and ink in order to make rapid and immediate observations. Looking at landscapes, and the structures within these landscapes, acts as the prompt for me to develop abstract images which are not descriptive. They are meant to offer an expressive and decorative echo of my experience of that particular location.’