Alexis Hunter

Alexis Hunter is a key feminist artist who has lived in London since 1972. Her work of the 1970s is identified as central to the development of radical feminist art in England at the time.

Hunter’s work is characterized by its distinctly feminist involvement. A common approach of the movement was to challenge the use of women in advertising, and Hunter’s work is aesthetically informed by ideas of filmic chronology and photo sequences. The female hand and the male body are distinctive motifs. Hunter’s work is read by critics and public alike as a direct confrontation to the accepted norms of sexualization, objectification, and seduction within society. As Hunter says, ultimately, the work exists as a repost to the damning and apathetic response of critics to academic feminist art.

Hunter stakes her claim as a key feminist artist most explicitly through her activism. She was a member of numerous feminist groups including the Women’s Workshop of the Artist Union, curator of shows at the Women’s Free Arts Alliance, and also lectured on feminist art both in the UK and internationally. Informed by an investigation into female psychology and awareness of advertising methods, Hunter’s position within the movement is unique.

Recent exhibitions include “WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution” (Museum of Modern Art, Los Angeles and traveling, New York, USA and Canada, 2007) and a retrospective, “Alexis Hunter: Radical Feminism” (Norwich Gallery, England, 2006).

Over 35 years ago, I was interested in exploring the fault lines between the feminist concept of Patriarchy and the ways in which the media world viewed men.

I wanted to authenticate a form of art that incorporated feminist theory - images and presentation - that insisted on the female identity of the artist. These photographs produced as narrative sequences were called Approach to Fear, and investigated the value of feminism in conquering conventional female fears, such as technophobia, rape, grief, and objectified male sexual power.

I used the still camera as a movie camera to capture the symbolic relationships between objects and the human psyche. These works were a visual antidote to the ideas of romance and sexuality in advertising. The viewer is invited, through the focus of the camera lens, to recognize the artist’s attention to theory. As the images sharpen the focus delineates the symbolic detachment and the realization of the goal of psychological liberation from pre-feminist socialization.

There is a genuine interest in radical politics after the materialism of the last two decades. The moral ethic of this artwork and the complex dialectic between painting, film and the still photograph that this work explores might now be seen for its complexity and experimental nature. Not only does the context remain politically radical but the imagery is contemporary; this work is performance art where the artist is the ‘exposed’ protagonist.

The privileges that women fought for in the 1960s and 1970s are now under threat. This work shows how art can be political and can be used to subvert and challenge the status quo without sacrificing aesthetic integrity and artistic experiment.

It was exciting to be involved in the second wave of feminism and the feminist movement, and I am hoping that the third wave will be just as vibrant.

—Alexis Hunter/Alex Brew