Incollect Magazine - Issue 6

Incollect Magazine 85 used in painting a fresco, and scrapes in a cross-hatching pattern through multiple layers of wet paint using the end of a paintbrush to create a surface texture that resembles a tapestry or weaving. Slonem came to New York in the early 1970s at the height of the Pop art era (his brother worked for Andy Warhol) and this influenced his subject matter and style. He had his first show the next year at the Fischbach Gallery which at the time showed important artists, including Alex Katz. He has been showing his work with galleries ever since and today lives and works on New York’s Upper West Side, in addition to visiting his homes all over the country. “There is so much stimulation in New York, whether you participate or not there is a great energy here. You meet everyone.” Birds and butterflies were Slonem’s original iconic images, usually depicted in rows or arranged in repetitive and geometric compositions. “I am known for the bunnies but actually, I have been painting birds for 50 years now. I study the species, reading up on the birds that I paint to understand everything about their shape, color, and form and even the outside that they make. They are an endless source of fascination to me.” But he started out painting people, specifically religious figures which oddly enough led to the bunnies. “I was painting pictures of Christian saints and I just put bunnies at the feet of the saints and people seemed to really like them.” It was 1973 and Slonem liked to do ‘warm-up’ paintings. He would start his day in the studio with bunny paintings on board just to loosen his hands and get into the groove of painting. He had gathered over the years a collection of grand, old ornate painting frames, and on a whim, he put the bunny paintings in the frames and hung them on the studio walls. Friends and visitors to the studio started asking to buy them. Slonem tells me that he painted bunnies because of their association with mystics and religious rites. “There is a lot of Interesting folklore that is connected to rabbits,” he says. “They have been mystical creatures for centuries and appear in all kinds of literature such as the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland. I view them as a kind of transcendental creature with the power of connecting us to different realities.” Slonem’s bunnies are rendered less as figurative forms than Hunt Slonem, Ascension Blue & Gold Shiva. Oil on canvas, 50 x 70 inches. Courtesy of Whistler Contemporary Gallery.