Detail of the painting
'Perceive' is on the cover of Pink Magazine for the month of September along with an article! Copies are available in Hilton Head, Bluffton, and Beaufort!
Here's the article!
This month’s cover art, entitled “Perceive”, is one in a series called Inner Landscapes by Savannah artist Ruth Hunter. This series of paintings sets out to explore facets of one’s unconscious. Our cover, only half of the original painting, reveals the nuances of associations with other humans.
“My inspiration for this piece was relationships between people and perceiving the ‘other’, how sometimes perceptions can be clouded,” Hunter explained. A person can either reveal or conceal layers of their personality, just as the layers of color shroud the figure in the painting. “Red is a powerful color, revealing strong emotions. The colors on top, like the lavender, create a veiling effect, representing a clouding of perception. This is where the title came from. We all have strong emotions, but we try to bury them at the same time,” Hunter continued.
Hunter utilizes these layers of color as part of her distinct style of painting using oil and wax. She starts her palate with the three primary colors, red, blue, and yellow, but what happens next depends on her mood. “Choosing which colors to start with is intuitive, and has to do with how I’m feeling at that moment. I watch how colors interact and change as I layer them, and images jump off as I lay down the colors. It’s like a dialogue with the painting. When shapes come forward, that’s when the painting appears to me.”
“I always wanted to be an artist from the time I was very young. I drew constantly. Whenever I would visit someone’s home, I would immediately absorb myself into whatever pictures they had hanging on their walls.” And indeed, since 1992, Ruth Hunter has worked as a full-time artist. Combining formal training with practical experience, Hunter developed a gestural approach to drawing quick portrait sketches in tourist destinations such as The West End Marketplace in Dallas, the beach at St. Augustine, Florida, and City Market in Savannah.
With an ardent interest in mythology, psychology, and the spirituality, Hunter immerses herself through her Inner Landscapes paintings. Combining abstract elements, color and emotion with the human figure, Hunter conveys the dreamlike world of the subconscious. “I believe wholeheartedly that dream time, the collective unconscious, archetypes, the myths, serendipity, the happy accident are all part of an inner landscape that each of us shares. I get to peek in and pull out a picture of it. My work reflects a personal, yet universal, expression of raw human emotion, giving the viewer a window through which to visually engage their own inner journeys,” Hunter affirmed.
Be sure to visit Ruth Hunter Studio and Inner Landscapes at Studio 101 in City Market, Savannah. You can also view her work at Gallery 209 in historic Downtown Brunswick (912-262-0628) or visit
www.ruthhunterstudio.com.
"2010 NEW WORK!" Originals created this year and hot off the easel...more work is uploaded to my site on a regular basis and can be seen in person at my Studio in City Market 
