Hanging by a Thread: Allison Hunterat Houston Art Alliance

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Hanging by a Thread: Allison Hunter
at Houston Art Alliance through December 30th
by Todd Camplin

Houston Art Alliance's art on the wall may not bug you, but you will see a lot of
insects. Allison Hunter is exhibiting her work of photography, video, and paintings
in a show titled "Hanging by a Tread."

The paintings of bees were made of thick strokes of oil paint. At first, I was surprised Hunter
didn’t use the encaustic painting process. But I came to realize that maybe these painting
were about the image and not about being self-referential. The use of wax would have been
too direct a reference to the bees. Hunter seems to be more interested in the story and the
beautiful images of the insects. You can meditate on a bee or two and not feel you're being
winked at by the artist.

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The video had a smathering of computer generated animation, footage of bees, an audio
that seemed to come from several vintage documentaries, and sometimes you would hear
a layer with audio of bird songs. The video had three parts: shots of a bee hive and bees
around flowers, a computer animation of bees in space, and bees swarming in the sky. I
thought each part could have been shown as stand alone video. Thematically, I think the
shot of the yellowish white sky with bees buzzing in all directions worked the best with the
rest of the show. The empty sky with a tree branch surrounded by bees mirrored the
paintings and photography perfectly.

Untitled #7 (from the Blue Butterfly series), 2011, 30 x 30 in. color photograph

Untitled #6 (from the Blue Butterfly series), 2011, 30 x 30 inches, digital c-print

previous articles
by Todd Camplin

Allison Hunter's Blue Butterfly series is incredibly stunning, visually; but the work also
hit me personally. Her work has taken me back to when my family used to raise
monarchs. We would pick milkweed with little butterfly eggs attached to the
leaves, then we would continue to feed the caterpillars until they began to form
their chrysalis. If we were lucky, we got to watch the butterflies emerge, and
then soon after we would release them into the wild.

"Portrait of a Dead Bee #2," 2011, 2 x 2 in., oil on canvas

"Portrait of a Dead Bee #5," 2011, 2 x 2 in., oil on canvas

I think I am most impressed with Allison Hunter’s ability to skillfully create a good body of work
across three different mediums. Although this weekend it will be closed for Christmas, you can
still catch it this coming week, from the 27th to the 30th, see the show.