Tom Hunter is a photographer that uses classic paintings as the references for his own images. Particularly inspired by 17th Century Dutch painters, Hunter uses these paintings as a way to bring something beautiful into a not so beautiful situation. Such paintings are highly regarded, and so by using them as a reference, he brings a sense of familiarity to his photographs that can be sensed by a viewer, arguably a key part to Hunter's success.
I think that Hunter is a key photographer for my project as he repurposes classic paintings in order to create a new narrative. The images are recognisable as photographic replicas of the paintings we all know and love, but the narrative has been adjusted to something more modern. My work is similar to this - repurposing classic paintings for my own use and my own narrative.
Coming from a background that was not wealthy, Hunter often felt as if he was seen as an outcast by the majority of society, and so he decided to document the life of squatters such as himself, using many techniques including sculpture. This led to perhaps his most famous series, 'Persons Unknown'.
Woman Reading a Possession Order (1998) is a photograph from 'Persons Unknown' and is based off Vermeer's A Girl Reading At An Open Window (1657).
Hunter has used a very similar location, subject and lighting to mimic Vermeer's painting. However, the context of Hunter's photograph seems rather different to Vermeer's painting; the painting appears rather poetic and I for one instantly assume she is reading a love letter. Hunter's photograph does at first seem very similar to this, poetic in feeling and romantic in the aura, but the title changes how such a photo is perceived. The image then feels sad, and yet it retains its beauty. We understand more about the subject, that she is a squatter and this is not her permanent home. He has given a taboo, uncomfortable topic of conversation, a socially frowned upon community, beauty, grace and most of all, humanity. By using Vermeer's image as a reference, he gives this woman importance, for the painting is such a well-regarded piece of work.
By replacing the bowl of fruit with the baby, Hunter has given us another serving of contextual information; she is a new mother. A child is a soft spot for many, and so yet again we are met with a wave of sadness and anger for the woman who is being evicted from her safe space.
This modernisation of such a famous painting hits harder than the original, in my opinion. This is because it relates to ongoing issues, and photography is visually more relatable as it is a tool for 'real' documentation. Vermeer's painting was also created hundreds of years ago now, and so it can become easy to distance yourself from the context.
Hunter speaks about the image and why he decided to start this series; "I was living in Hackney in London, in a whole street of squats, having spent two years travelling around Europe in a doubledecker bus. Everyone got a letter addressed to "persons unknown". The council wanted to knock down the street and build warehouses. The Tories had brought in the Criminal Justice Act, which was designed to stop parties. Every time you saw a picture of a squatter or a traveller, it was to go with a story about how antisocial they were. I just wanted to take a picture showing the dignity of squatter life – a piece of propaganda to save my neighbourhood." - The Guardian
When taking the series title into account, the image has even more impact (on me, at least). Hunter has portrayed his subject as beautiful, natural and fresh, and so when we come to understand that the council has no idea who these people are and are addressing them by 'Persons Unknown', and therefore removing their humanity, it becomes heartbreaking for the viewer to come to terms with. This is exactly the purpose of the series, however, for Hunter wanted his audience to understand that while his subjects are still squatters, they are people with lives, struggles and emotions, and not so different from yourself.
Taken from Tom Hunter's blog, he describes his fascination with Vermeer; "One of my attractions to photography is its implicit relationship to realism, a medium deeply rooted in its indexical nature to a notion of reality. Vermeer gave us a window into a real world but also a world imagined through his art.". I feel that this is exactly where my photography is taking me with this project, allowing me to create a connection between the fantasy and the real in one image.
A further series, Life and Death in Hackney, is, unsurprisingly, about narratives that have occurred in Hunter's hometown of Hackney.
On his website, Hunter describes the series; "‘Life and Death in Hackney’ paints a landscape, creating a melancholic beauty out of the post-industrial decay where the wild buddleia and sub-cultural inhabitants took root and bloomed. This maligned and somewhat abandoned area became the epicentre of the new warehouse rave scene of the early 90’s. During this time the old print factories, warehouses and workshops became the playground of a disenchanted generation, taking the DIY culture from the free festival scene and adapting it to the urban wastelands. This Venice of the East End, with its canals, rivers and waterways, made a labyrinth of pleasure gardens and pavilions in which thousands of explorers travelled through a heady mixture of music and drug induced trances."
The image I am particularly interested in from this series is called The Way Home (1998), based on John Millais’s Ophelia (1851-2).
This piece of work follows the story of a girl who slipped on her way home from a rave based in one of the pre-industrial sites described above, falling into a canal and losing her life in there.
On his website, it says "By taking on some of the attributes associated with the Pre-Raphaelite artists, such as social engagement, which has been largely erased from the cultural understanding of this group, and the obvious intertwining of beauty and nature Hunter has reinvestigated his much maligned inner city landscape and society to create an unusual chronicle of contemporary, urban Britain.". This again shows that Hunter's photographs have a huge link with painting, and brings to our attention the fact that art such as this is is not appreciated by the masses anymore - this connection to many has gone.
Ophelia is based on "The scene depicted is from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act IV, Scene vii, in which Ophelia, driven out of her mind when her father is murdered by her lover Hamlet, falls into a stream and drowns" - Tate. And so, it is clear that the fictional story of Ophelia's fate and the story of the girl who never ended up home after a rave is correlating in narrative. Hunter has appreciated and acknowledged such similarities and drawn from a painting based on the fictional writing in order to depict a story that actually happened.
The similarities that have been drawn from Millais’s Ophelia is rather astounding, and yet it is the small differences that make Hunter's so powerful. The positioning of the bush and the flowers, the woman and the colour tones make for quite an astounding comparison. The painting is beautiful and has a sense of peacefulness despite the wrangling of branches and the lifeless body floating in the water. Hunter's photograph, to me, is deprived of this feeling. This could be because of the reality of the image - after all do we not believe a photograph more than a painting? This could very much be something an unfortunate passerby could come across, and seeing it as our eyes would rather than with paint seems to hit harder. And then, of course, there are the warehouse buildings behind the overgrowth of greenery, bringing us back to reality and the time we live in. The metal infrastructure seemingly stealing the sense of peace from the image also seems to frame it, as well as linking back to the story of the girl who was raving in such a warehouse before losing her life. Millais's painting is a story of humanity and nature, or perhaps a war between the two. Hunter's photograph not only reflects this but adds an element of humanity vs humans and their creations. Hunter has purposefully made this link between fantasy and reality, as Vermeer did. Millais’s painting, and by extension, Shakespeare's 'Hamlet' seems to then become a foreshadowing of what was to happen, even though hundreds of thousands of people must have drowned in a river. By mimicking the location and pose, Hunter has created a connection with solely Ophelia and the raver, rather than a large group of people, despite the fact that when the actual event happened it is unlikely that it looked so starkly similar to such painting.
Tom Hunter is an artist that uses painting as one of its greatest sources of influences, a technique I am exploring also. I find his links between real stories with real people and a fantasy world incredibly interesting and has motivated me to continue to forge this relationship within my own work.
I think that Hunter is a key photographer for my project as he repurposes classic paintings in order to create a new narrative. The images are recognisable as photographic replicas of the paintings we all know and love, but the narrative has been adjusted to something more modern. My work is similar to this - repurposing classic paintings for my own use and my own narrative.
Coming from a background that was not wealthy, Hunter often felt as if he was seen as an outcast by the majority of society, and so he decided to document the life of squatters such as himself, using many techniques including sculpture. This led to perhaps his most famous series, 'Persons Unknown'.
Woman Reading a Possession Order (1998) is a photograph from 'Persons Unknown' and is based off Vermeer's A Girl Reading At An Open Window (1657).
Hunter has used a very similar location, subject and lighting to mimic Vermeer's painting. However, the context of Hunter's photograph seems rather different to Vermeer's painting; the painting appears rather poetic and I for one instantly assume she is reading a love letter. Hunter's photograph does at first seem very similar to this, poetic in feeling and romantic in the aura, but the title changes how such a photo is perceived. The image then feels sad, and yet it retains its beauty. We understand more about the subject, that she is a squatter and this is not her permanent home. He has given a taboo, uncomfortable topic of conversation, a socially frowned upon community, beauty, grace and most of all, humanity. By using Vermeer's image as a reference, he gives this woman importance, for the painting is such a well-regarded piece of work.
By replacing the bowl of fruit with the baby, Hunter has given us another serving of contextual information; she is a new mother. A child is a soft spot for many, and so yet again we are met with a wave of sadness and anger for the woman who is being evicted from her safe space.
This modernisation of such a famous painting hits harder than the original, in my opinion. This is because it relates to ongoing issues, and photography is visually more relatable as it is a tool for 'real' documentation. Vermeer's painting was also created hundreds of years ago now, and so it can become easy to distance yourself from the context.
Hunter speaks about the image and why he decided to start this series; "I was living in Hackney in London, in a whole street of squats, having spent two years travelling around Europe in a doubledecker bus. Everyone got a letter addressed to "persons unknown". The council wanted to knock down the street and build warehouses. The Tories had brought in the Criminal Justice Act, which was designed to stop parties. Every time you saw a picture of a squatter or a traveller, it was to go with a story about how antisocial they were. I just wanted to take a picture showing the dignity of squatter life – a piece of propaganda to save my neighbourhood." - The Guardian
When taking the series title into account, the image has even more impact (on me, at least). Hunter has portrayed his subject as beautiful, natural and fresh, and so when we come to understand that the council has no idea who these people are and are addressing them by 'Persons Unknown', and therefore removing their humanity, it becomes heartbreaking for the viewer to come to terms with. This is exactly the purpose of the series, however, for Hunter wanted his audience to understand that while his subjects are still squatters, they are people with lives, struggles and emotions, and not so different from yourself.
Taken from Tom Hunter's blog, he describes his fascination with Vermeer; "One of my attractions to photography is its implicit relationship to realism, a medium deeply rooted in its indexical nature to a notion of reality. Vermeer gave us a window into a real world but also a world imagined through his art.". I feel that this is exactly where my photography is taking me with this project, allowing me to create a connection between the fantasy and the real in one image.
A further series, Life and Death in Hackney, is, unsurprisingly, about narratives that have occurred in Hunter's hometown of Hackney.
On his website, Hunter describes the series; "‘Life and Death in Hackney’ paints a landscape, creating a melancholic beauty out of the post-industrial decay where the wild buddleia and sub-cultural inhabitants took root and bloomed. This maligned and somewhat abandoned area became the epicentre of the new warehouse rave scene of the early 90’s. During this time the old print factories, warehouses and workshops became the playground of a disenchanted generation, taking the DIY culture from the free festival scene and adapting it to the urban wastelands. This Venice of the East End, with its canals, rivers and waterways, made a labyrinth of pleasure gardens and pavilions in which thousands of explorers travelled through a heady mixture of music and drug induced trances."
The image I am particularly interested in from this series is called The Way Home (1998), based on John Millais’s Ophelia (1851-2).
This piece of work follows the story of a girl who slipped on her way home from a rave based in one of the pre-industrial sites described above, falling into a canal and losing her life in there.
On his website, it says "By taking on some of the attributes associated with the Pre-Raphaelite artists, such as social engagement, which has been largely erased from the cultural understanding of this group, and the obvious intertwining of beauty and nature Hunter has reinvestigated his much maligned inner city landscape and society to create an unusual chronicle of contemporary, urban Britain.". This again shows that Hunter's photographs have a huge link with painting, and brings to our attention the fact that art such as this is is not appreciated by the masses anymore - this connection to many has gone.
Ophelia is based on "The scene depicted is from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act IV, Scene vii, in which Ophelia, driven out of her mind when her father is murdered by her lover Hamlet, falls into a stream and drowns" - Tate. And so, it is clear that the fictional story of Ophelia's fate and the story of the girl who never ended up home after a rave is correlating in narrative. Hunter has appreciated and acknowledged such similarities and drawn from a painting based on the fictional writing in order to depict a story that actually happened.
The similarities that have been drawn from Millais’s Ophelia is rather astounding, and yet it is the small differences that make Hunter's so powerful. The positioning of the bush and the flowers, the woman and the colour tones make for quite an astounding comparison. The painting is beautiful and has a sense of peacefulness despite the wrangling of branches and the lifeless body floating in the water. Hunter's photograph, to me, is deprived of this feeling. This could be because of the reality of the image - after all do we not believe a photograph more than a painting? This could very much be something an unfortunate passerby could come across, and seeing it as our eyes would rather than with paint seems to hit harder. And then, of course, there are the warehouse buildings behind the overgrowth of greenery, bringing us back to reality and the time we live in. The metal infrastructure seemingly stealing the sense of peace from the image also seems to frame it, as well as linking back to the story of the girl who was raving in such a warehouse before losing her life. Millais's painting is a story of humanity and nature, or perhaps a war between the two. Hunter's photograph not only reflects this but adds an element of humanity vs humans and their creations. Hunter has purposefully made this link between fantasy and reality, as Vermeer did. Millais’s painting, and by extension, Shakespeare's 'Hamlet' seems to then become a foreshadowing of what was to happen, even though hundreds of thousands of people must have drowned in a river. By mimicking the location and pose, Hunter has created a connection with solely Ophelia and the raver, rather than a large group of people, despite the fact that when the actual event happened it is unlikely that it looked so starkly similar to such painting.
Tom Hunter is an artist that uses painting as one of its greatest sources of influences, a technique I am exploring also. I find his links between real stories with real people and a fantasy world incredibly interesting and has motivated me to continue to forge this relationship within my own work.
Tom Hunter
Reviewed by BethCorbett
on
March 11, 2020
Rating:
Reviewed by BethCorbett
on
March 11, 2020
Rating:
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