Robert Hunter's white paintings are abstract and have the glow of Zen or a quattrocento Annunciation - they are made of the everyday. The paint is diluted synthetic polymer paint, the dimensions are determined by the hardware units of plywood board. Hunter works mechanically, like a builder, using a roller and masking tape, so that his mind reaches a state of relaxation and the painting can "generate itself". The process becomes automatic, or subconscious, and the intricate geometry of these works seems to follow the irregularity of everyday thought. Despite the initial impression of neutrality, Hunter's art is about, or at least directed to, the subjective. His paintings emerge slowly, delicately. The viewer must adjust to the fine distinctions of tone.... What we see almost seems to be generated by the act of perception itself. The paintings demand that we move about, examine them close up. Our mental processes merge with the act of vision, and the paintings flow out of and fold into our consciousness, like the shadows of our subjective experience.
T. Nicholson
ROBERT HUNTER
Biography
1947
Born Melbourne, Australia
1965
Preston Technological College, Melbourne
1967
Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne
Solo Exhibitions
2008
Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide
2007
Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne
2006
Bellas Milani Gallery, Brisbane
2004
Anna Schwartz Gallery at The Depot Gallery, Sydney
2002
Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne
2001
Gallerie Arnaud Lefebvre, Paris, France
1999
Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne
1997
Wendy Rogers, Perth
1996
Pinacotheca, Melbourne
1995
Bellas Gallery, Melbourne
1993
Pinacotheca, Melbourne
Annandale Galleries, Sydney
1992
Annandale Galleries, Sydney
ARCO, Bill Gregory, Madrid Spain
1991
Pinacotheca, Melbourne
1989
Monash University Gallery, Melbourne
Ian Potter Gallery, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne
1988
Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth
1987
Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane
Yuill/Crowley, Sydney
1986
Pinacotheca, Melbourne
1984
Yuill/Crowley, Sydney
Pinacotheca, Melbourne
1983
Yuill/Crowley, Sydney
1982
Ray Hughes Gallery, Brisbane
1981
Pinacotheca, Melbourne
1979
Gallery 321, New York
1976
Pinacotheca, Melbourne
1975
Lisson Gallery, London
1974
Galerie Konrad Fischer, Dusseldorf
1973
Pinacotheca, Melbourne
1971
Pinacotheca, Melbourne
1970
Pinacotheca, Melbourne
1968
Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne
Selected Group Exhibitions
2005
Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize 2005, Bendigo Art Gallery, Bendigo
2004
Three-way Abstraction: Works from the Monash University Collection, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne
2003
See Here Now: Vizard Foundation Art Collection of the 1990’s, Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne
Fieldwork: Australian Art 1968-2002, The Ian Potter Centre, NGV Australia, Melbourne
2002
Meridian, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
Good Vibrations: the legacy of Op art in Australia, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne
2001
Phenomena New Painting in Australia: 1, Art Gallery of New South Wales; Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne
2000
Monochromes, University Art Museum, The University of Queensland, Brisbane
low-down: Recent Acquisitions, Monash University Collection, Monash University Museum of Art, Clayton
1999
Clemenger Contemporary Art Award, Museum of Modern Art at Heide, Melbourne
Visy Board Art Prize, The Orangery, South Australia
1998
Objects and Ideas, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
Minimal Art and Its Aftermath - selected from the Kerry Stokes Collection, Lawrence Wilson Art
Gallery, University of Western Australia in conjunction with the Festival of Perth
Everyday: Biennale of Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
1997
Six Leading Artists, United Overseas Bank, Singapore, (with Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne)
I had a dream: Australian Art in the 1960s, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Australian Art in the 1980s, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
1996
Systems End: Contemporary Art in Australia, Oxy Gallery, Osaka; The Hakone Open-Air Museum Ninotaira,
Hokone-machi, Japan; Dong-Ah Gallery, Seoul (with Sherman Galleries, Sydney)
1995
Australia Felix, Benalla Easter Arts Festival, The Grandstand
Contemporary Australian Painting, Annandale Galleries, Sydney
The Loti and Victor Smorgon Gift of Contemporary Australian Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
1994
Lisson Gallery, London
1991
Banal Art, Artspace, Sydney
1988
Ten x Ten, 200 Gertrude Street, Melbourne
Advance Australian Painting, Auckland City Art Gallery, Auckland
The 1988 Australian Biennale: From the Southern Cross (A World View of Art c.1940-1988), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Creating Australia: 200 Years of Art 1788-1988, Australian Bicentennial Authority, Art Gallery of South Australia
1987
What is This Thing Called Science? , University Gallery, University of Melbourne, Melbourne
Field to Figuration, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Painters and Sculptors: Diversity in Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane
1986
Surface for Reflection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
Fears and Scruples, University Gallery, University of Melbourne, Melbourne
Geometric Abstraction, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne
Pharmakon, Yuill/Crowley, Sydney
1985
The Subject of Painting, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
1984
The Field Now, Heide Park and Art Gallery, Melbourne
1983
Australian Perspecta 1983, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
1980
XI Biennale de Paris, Paris
1978
Carl Andre and Robert Hunter, Pinacotheca, Melbourne; Newcastle City Art Gallery, Newcastle
1976
Minimal Art, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
1974
Eight Contemporary Artists, Museum of Modern Art, New York
Painting Exhibition, Scottish Art Council Gallery, Edinburgh
1973
Minimal, Ewing Gallery, Melbourne
1971
Second Indian Triennale, Lalit Kala Academy, New Delhi
The Situation Now: Object or Post-Object Art? , Contemporary Art Society, Sydney; Ewing Gallery, Melbourne
1968
The Field, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
1967
Australian Young Contemporaries, Argus Gallery, Melbourne
Collections
A.I.M. Collection, Melbourne; Art Gallery of New South Wales; Art Gallery of South Australia; Art Gallery of Western Australia; National Gallery of Victoria; Newcastle Art Gallery; Kerry Stokes Collection; Ballarat Fine Art Gallery; Geelong Art Gallery; Monash Museum of Art, Melbourne; National Gallery of Australia; Queensland Art Gallery; Holmes à Court Collection; Townsville Art Gallery
