Gina Hunt – From the Badlands to Azimuth

Raised in South Dakota, Gina Hunt’s aesthetic practice focuses upon ephemeral modes of experience, cerebral and visceral. In addition to traditional formats of presentation, Hunt has expanded her investigation via production of site-specific works in contrasting environments in national parks and urban centers. This week the COMP Magazine caught up with Hunt to discuss the process of creating site-specific works, interacting with non-representational visual phenomena, how time affects the reading of her artworks, and what’s on the docket for the remainder of 2018.

Gina Hunt
Installation view of Azimuth

Hand-dyed scrim over ten wooden frames
Each frame measures 43 inches x 43 inches
Installed at The Franklin, Chicago, Illinois,
 2018

(photo credit: Jordan Fuller)

An initial detail that stands out when I consider your aesthetic practices is your personal experience and its’ connection to place. You grew up in South Dakota, studied in Minnesota and in Normal at Illinois State University, then spent a year abroad in Qatar. These are fairly different environments. Can you identify any early events that predate these experiences that you see impacting how you approach your site-specific projects?

I have been quite mobile, and even more so in the last 3 or 4 years. Re-locating to Qatar had the most impact on me and I was able to deal with site, place, and location in an incredibly direct, intentional, and thoughtful way. I moved to Qatar in 2015, two months after finishing my MFA at Illinois State University. I was the recipient of a one-year Fellowship within the Painting and Printmaking Department at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar. I moved to Doha, the capital of Qatar, which is a rapidly-changing city on the bay of the Arabian (Persian) Gulf. With the Fellowship, I taught courses at the University and also had a studio in order to actively continue my studio practice. Before moving, I had identified several areas of potential research, most of which dealt with Islamic architecture and how its design often functions as a filter of sunlight. I was very intentional about not wanting to “transplant” the work I was actively making while in the US, so instead had to figure out how this place in the world could inform my work. This experience changed my life and helped me to think about location, site, and place. Since then, I have developed a body of site-specific works in various locations and each is dependent on the place it is installed. The relationship to each place, and how the work is generated from it, varies.

Gina Hunt
Suncatcher for the Badlands
Nylon, window screen mesh, and theater scrim stretched on four painted wooden frames, attached with steel hinges
48 inches x 36 inches x 36 inches
Installed at Badlands National Park, South Dakota, 2016

Currently on view at the Franklin in East Garfield Park is Azimuth. Can you walk us through your process of producing this temporal artwork? What is the intent of this piece? How does this site and the issue of time impact the viewing?

Azimuth developed through conversations I had with Kendra Paitz, who curated the project, as well as my recent research into sundials. I wanted to create an installation that was integrated into the outdoor structure of The Franklin, and I wanted the work to appear visually different throughout the day. I have been reflecting on the outdoor installations I have made over the past several years, and realized a few things. I have been creating material-based objects that are situated between the viewer and the sun, in order to create a visually shifting experience that presents the opportunity to watch time pass through these materials that filter and meditate the sunlight. This is what sundials do!

Gina Hunt
Installation view of Azimuth

Hand-dyed scrim over ten wooden frames
each frame measures 43 inches x 43 inches
Installed at The Franklin, Chicago, Illinois, 
2018

(photo credit: Jordan Fuller)

I created an installation which is organized by color and architecture, yet brings in the variable of ever-changing sunlight. I compare a lot of my outdoor installations to scientific experiments, in which the physical installation is the stable control, and the sunlight and weather conditions are the variable (the component that changes and helps us watch time pass). It is a very direct way for me to work with the nearly intangible elements of sunlight and atmosphere.

A unique aspect of Azimuth is that it is in open air and only illuminated by natural light, yet exists within the structure of architecture. I have done several installations that are outdoors, and many of which are indoors, but none that have qualities of both, which the Franklin provides. The installation is made of ten frames that have been installed in a continuous line throughout the four walls of the Franklin. Each frame has two layers of theater scrim, which I have hand-dyed. I have been working extensively with the primary colors of light (red, green, and blue) over the past several years. Each frame in Azimuth has a combination of two of these colors. There are six possible color layering combinations, and thus, four of the combinations are repeated and are placed at opposite sides of the structure. This allows the viewer to see the same color combination under different circumstances (depending on the time of day, one is illuminated and the other is not). As the sun rises and morning begins, the eastern side of the installation becomes illuminated. As the day progresses and the sunlight shifts, the installation becomes activated and is practically theatrical. Shapes of light and shadow are constantly flitting, glowing, appearing and disappearing. I have spoken about this project as being an abstraction of a sundial. The installation slows you down and through the colored scrim filters, enhances and points our attention to the passage of time.

Gina Hunt
Installation view of Azimuth

Hand-dyed scrim over ten wooden frames
Each frame measures 43 inches x 43 inches
Installed at The Franklin, Chicago, Illinois
, 2018

(photo credit: Jordan Fuller)

Lets continue with the idea of selection of place. For instance, in 2016 you produced Mirroring and Suncatcher for the Badlands in the Badlands National Park in South Dakota. What role does the site play? Are there specific places that you would like to produce work for?

I was awarded a residency at the Badlands National Park in 2016, very soon after I returned to the US after living in the Middle East for a year. As I mentioned, re-locating and actively producing work in this region really informed how I approach site-specific work. I began researching visual traditions within indigenous Lakota culture. I learned about stellar theology and its dependence on the landscape. This region of South Dakota is sacred to the Lakota, and their knowledge of celestial events is based from direct observation from where I was residing. This knowledge has been documented in beautiful, informative abstract drawings, which I studied.

This connection between the sky and the land was very informative for the sculptural installations I made. These works were conduits between the sky and the land. The form and color of the sculptures were informed by specific drawings from Lakota culture that symbolized and described celestial events based on direct observation from this region.

Gina Hunt
View of Mirroring

Theater scrim, acrylic on PVC mesh, and
polyester screen mesh stretched over three painted frames and attached with steel hinges
48 inches x 36 inches x 36 inches
Installed at Badlands National Park, South Dakota, 2016

Your practice is primarily non-representational. Optics and the experience of seeing appear to be central to your investigations. What prompted this approach and research? What specific tenets are you investigating?

It stems from being fascinating by the fact that humans have eyeballs and use them without too much consideration while they garner meaning from the world. I’m really invested in considering how subjective each of our visual experiences are. Painters have always been doing this, and depictions of light have been present throughout the history of painting. Light, and how it changes, helps us watch time pass.

I also generate visual phenomena through the layering of scrim and patterns. I create interference patterns with textiles. Interference patterns are present in many situations and also happen with sound. They are generally undesirable, as they interfere with information. They are generated when two patterns overlap, and a third pattern (interference) emerges. This can also be seen when images are captured on digital screens. For example, if you take a photo with your phone of your computer screen, you will see an interference pattern on the phone photo. You will also notice that it is colorful, and if you look closely enough, you will be able to see red, green, and blue. Digital screens are made of red, green, and blue pixels. Our eyes are sensitive to red, green, and blue wavelengths. I am using physical materials and light to ask questions about vision and how complex and fugitive visual experience really is.

Gina Hunt
Artist with Mirroring

Theater scrim, acrylic on PVC mesh, and
polyester screen mesh stretched over three painted frames and attached with steel hinges
48 inches x 36 inches x 36 inches
Installed at Badlands National Park, South Dakota, 2016

The Chromadiorama series appear designed to be presented in interiors. These works consist of weaved hand-dyed scrim and acrylic on cut canvas, stretched over painted wooden frame. How does your approach differ from site-specific efforts?

I am very curious about how to make a painting which is perceptually unstable and fugitive, yet its physical facts remained fixed, accessible, and unchanging. During grad school, I was making paintings generated from a fascination with light phenomena, and began making paintings through a process I developed that was similar to exposing a photogram, but with sprayed paint instead of light exposure (these works developed through what I learned while making tons of cyanotypes, which were exposed with sunlight).

I developed a process of making pattern-based paintings that are incredibly physical and sculptural while also presenting optical experiences based in color. I am fascinated by how fugitive color can be, and the paintings have been another way for me to ask questions about how color has been, and is still being, theorized. The installations provoke similar questions, but the context is different.

Gina Hunt
Chromascope (Control) and Chromascope (Magenta)
Acrylic, cut canvas, and staples
Each painting measures 27 inches x 20 inches
2014

With the exhibition, Azimuth, at the Franklin set, what’s are you currently working upon? Do you have any upcoming exhibitions or site-specific works planned? Any travels in search of new sites to install works on the agenda?

I will be showing paintings and sculpture in a few group shows happening in Chicago this fall, at Chicago Artists Coalition and Alan Koppel Gallery. I am looking forward to spending more time in the studio working on new paintings as well. I typically work on a lot of site-responsive installations in the spring and summer, and this year has been full of new installations. I am looking forward to creating new window installations within residential spaces, which is something I have not yet done but will allow the work to be lived with. The window installations shift in color, light, and varying levels of translucency throughout the day, so they really are best viewed through longer periods of time. I have also been working alongside a good friend and incredible artist, Allison Lacher, on a new outdoor installation which will happen in October at STNDRD, located in the St. Louis metro area.

Gina Hunt
Chromadiorama (Mirroring)
Hand-dyed scrim and acrylic on cut canvas, stretched over painted wooden frame
20 inches x 16 inches
2017

For additional information on the art practice of Gina Hunt, please visit:

Gina Hunt – https://gina-hunt.com/home.html

The Visualist – http://www.thevisualist.org/2018/05/gina-hunt-azimuth/

Additional works by Gina Hunt:

Gina Hunt
RGBA Window Screens (v3) 

Hand-dyed theater scrim over four wooden frames each frame approximately 95 inches x 30 inches

Installed at Cleve Carney Art Gallery, College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, Illinois, 
2018

Gina Hunt
RGBA Windows (v2)

Hand-dyed theater scrim over four wooden frames

Each frame measures 63 inches x 38 inches

Installed at Drew University, Madison, New Jersey
, 2018

Gina Hunt, artist, East Garfield Park Studio, Chicago, 2018

Artist interview and portrait by Chester Alamo-Costello