An Artist who Infuses Color to Culture, Literature and Arts

Rick Hunt is an artist who learnt art from Franconia and Massachusetts College of Art for illustration and fine art. He also did a BS in psychology from Lesley University in Cambridge Massachusetts. He was mentored internationally by the artist Kenneth Westhaver. Later his mentor adviced him that one should go to art school, learn everything can and hone your skills...get out...and forget it all. He developed his style of painting which a mix of psychedelic/ pop/sci-fi/confessional. Rick’s work has been influenced mostly by musicians rather than other visual artists. He admire Jackson Pollock, De Kooning...Many inspirations just come from his life experience...Rick has ALWAYS created art ever since he could pick up a pencil. He feels that he became a serious artist at the age of twelve... Rick says that the music of Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, and most recently Anoushka Shankar is influencing his work... Rick created a series of paintings on Abenaki, the indigenous native American tribe along with the native American artists. This series of paintings focuses on creating Maine-based conversations like those taking place nationally about contemporary issues, as expressed through Native art. It is about Native identity in this society at this time, and the challenges one experiences living ‘Indian’ in our various ‘worlds’. In 2011, Rick met the famed actress, singer, author, poet, businesswoman, cultural icon and American scholar Angela Bowie in the social cyberworld of facebook. When Angela made “The Angie Bowie Show” page on Facebook, Rick did a two feet high by three feet long drawing for the title page and sent it to Angela in the mail. The beautiful painting became the title page and the beginning of their collaboration, which started with the book “Cat-Astrophe” which was published last year followed by “Fancy Footwork”. Rick illustrated poems of Angie for both her books. They also collaborated on two books of Rick’s artwork, “Gaucho Visions” and “Gaucho Visions II”, with Rick providing the images. They even had in exclusive show in radio, with “The Angie Bowie Barnett Show”. They started it as a forum for inviting their creative, talented friends to talk about themselves and their art, with all enjoying a spirit of fellowship, laughter and mutual appreciation. Rick is also illustrating a lot of David Bowie-esque type imagery because of all the projects he works with Angela Bowie. Rick also is part of a band The Dream Foundry where along with his friends Kevin Wallbank and Sally Sharp- Paulsen wrote and recorded songs from being in different places. They are an example of how changes in music technology, and shared objective can result in a band creating music in two different countries. The Dream Foundry had been graced with many brilliant portraits by Rick over the years; as with Angie and her poetry, no other artist could have expressed them and their sound perfectly through visual interpretation. Rick has been doing illustrations of songs as well as his brilliant illustrations of the band and Collective Rick’s lines and colors sway with the music of the band of Dream Foundry, with the poems of Angela and even with the social identity of the native tribe of America. Rick’s illustrations breathes life into the beautiful verses of Angela’s poetry and stories. It comes with thorough understanding that Rick has about the people, their culture, literature, art and music, that he is involved with. 

 

The malayalam version of this post was published in the malayalam monthly magazine 'Prasadakan' in its October 2020 edition.