Alexis Hunter
b. 1948, New Zealand
Alexis Hunter worked with photography and painting to explore Feminist theory, with often provocative and radical results. After studying at the Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland (1966- 69), Hunter joined her sister in London in the early 1970s. A member of both the Artists Union Women’s Workshop and the Woman’s Free Arts Alliance in the '70s, Hunter was influenced by a growing move towards anti-patriarchy and used art as a tool to explore everything from capitalism, the male-dominated advertising industry, contemporary politics and feminism. Through the use of series and narrative sequences, she exposed the tyranny of fashion, domestic violence and the exploitation of women through iconic works, including The Models Revenge (1974), Domestic Warfare (1975), Burning Shoe (1977), Approaches to Fear (1977) and many others.
Hunter's inclusion in the seminal exhibition 'WACK!, Art and The Feminist Revolution’ in 2007 at MOCA, Los Angeles and more recently in 2018, 'Sexual Warfare’, her solo exhibition that inaugurated the Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art has cemented her reputation as a leading feminist artist of the time. Her work is in the collections of Tate, the Arts Council of Great Britain; Museum of New Zealand (Te’Papa); the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art; the Verbund Collection and The Imperial War Museum, amongst others.