Tom Hunter – photographer @ Manchester Art Gallery

Not sure why sticking ‘modern’ subjects in the frame of old masters works. But it does.

’tis then ‘art’.

Anytime I try to exhibit, I don’t say I’m an artist, I say I’m a ‘documentary photographer’. Suddenly I’m too political, and I never hear from them again. Strange eh?

Saturday 9 November 2002 – Sunday 26 January 2003

Free

Tom Hunter

http://www.manchestergalleries.org/html/mag/mag_exhib_detail.jsp?id=264&uri=/html/mag/mag_exhib.jsp

Tom Hunter’s sumptuous photographs are inspired by Pre-Raphaelite paintings. For this exhibition, he has created two stunning new works inspired by paintings in Manchester Art Gallery’s collection – Hylas and the Nymphs by John Waterhouse and Autumn Leaves by JE Millais. The show also includes four other works inspired by paintings in the collection, including The Hireling Shepherd by Holman Hunt.

Hunter re-uses existing compositions by Pre-Raphaelite artists but casts contemporary figures as the protagonists, set in a post-industrial wilderness. His subjects are travellers and squatters who have generally been viewed as outsiders in society, but Hunter celebrates their colourful lifestyles and gives them new dignity.

The exhibition is sited next to the Pre-Raphaelite display within the Gallery and offers new ways of looking at much loved historic paintings by seeing them through a living artist’s eyes.

Tom Hunter is a British artist who regularly exhibits internationally.