Shiva Peacock

Hunt Slonem (b. 1951, Kittery, ME) is an American artist best known for his “maximalist” paintings of wildlife exotica—most famously birds, rabbits, and butterflies. Drawing inspiration from the spiritual and natural worlds, Slonem repeats these motifs on an epic scale in an act of visual and artistic mantra. Rendered through loose, gestural brushwork, his figures dissolve into rhythmic patterns at the edges of abstraction, creating symphonies of color, line, and form across a highly textural canvas. His oeuvre’s meditative qualities are equally matched by a “remarkable levity…a lightness of being” (Henry Geldzahler, Metropolitan Museum of Art 1996).

Slonem has also received critical acclaim for his restorations of national historical monuments, including Gilded Age mansions and Antebellum plantations. The artist saves these monuments from neglect and fills them with installations, combining his work with collections of 19th-century antiques.

Slonem has exhibited worldwide and has had over 350 shows, including 20 museum exhibitions.