Figuratively painting: Bethel Park artist shows distinctive style in Mt. Lebanon exhibit
Bethel Park resident Scott Hunter with the title painting of his “I Love You This Much” exhibit at the Artsmiths of Pittsburgh in Mt. Lebanon
Detail of Scott Hunter’s “I Love You This Much”
Scott and Molly Hunter with “Satisfaction”
Detail of Scott Hunter’s “The Experiment”
At first glance, many of Scott Hunter’s oil paintings look like something you’ve seen before, perhaps in old magazines or a family photo album.
But a closer look reveals that something’s not quite right.
“They’re images that are maybe disconcerting but also familiar to a lot of people,” the Bethel Park artist explained. “I enjoy placing those images together.”
His exhibit “I Love You This Much: Figurative Paintings by Scott,” which opens Sept. 9 and runs through Nov. 12 at the Artsmiths of Pittsburgh in Mt. Lebanon, features pieces displaying his affinity for techniques that give his otherwise representational subjects a distinctively surreal edge.
“I like to play with scale,” he cited as an example. “Sometimes you see large figures and small figures. I like to put figures that are in color next to figures that might be black and white, and kind of set them into an interior and make it kind of like a play, almost, or a television show.”
The painting for which the exhibit is named is indicative of what he describes: The key sentence is on the chest of an Elmer Fuddesque figurine, its arms extended to indicate “this much.” Only in this case, one of the arms ends abruptly at the shoulder.
Meanwhile, a blonde wearing a negligee, fox stole and vacuous stare appears to be on her way out of the room, oblivious to the man lying on the floor just to her left, who very well could be dead.
Such pleasingly puzzling pieces often draw on scenes that are reminiscent of a 1960s-era issue of Look, or maybe something on the set of “Mad Men.”
“I find images that sort of appeal to me for a certain reasons, and a lot of them are sort of vintage and old,” Hunter explained. “Things that I find interesting, I’ll save. That means postcards, photographs, magazines. So I have a lot of garbage in my studio that I kind of sift through to find images that I want to work with.
“A lot of those are personal,” he said. “Some of the paintings in this show are from family photographs that mean a lot to me, but they’re also universal enough to appeal to people.”
Many of his paintings on smaller canvases in the exhibit are based on photos that his Great Aunt Noni took on bus trips during the ’70s.
“Those photos always struck me because they were sort of bad,” he admitted. “They were records of her trip, but they weren’t good photographs by any means: poorly composed, overexposed. So I try to paint some of the flaws into them.”
By doing so, he strives to preserve a bygone era.
“It’s important to recognize that that bad photo is the only photo you have of a certain experience,” he said. “It comes to mean something more than it does today. If you were to take that bad photo, you’d just delete it right away.”
Such pieces relate to the exhibit’s theme:
“I hope they have more meaning than just sort of copying the photograph. I think they transcend that, because they’re funny. They’re awkward. But they’re meaningful. That kind of speaks to the title of the show, ‘I love you this much,’ meaning, let’s take a photo. We need to save this moment.”
Along with his figurative art, which is derived from real-object sources, Hunter also works in abstract and has been the subject of exhibits around the Pittsburgh area featuring that side of his talent.
Although he studied fine art at Boston University, the Whitehall native actually worked in financial services for 15 years after graduating, before he decided to pursue his passion for painting full-time.
“That’s an enormous step to take, and I think it’s a step that a lot of people wouldn’t even consider,” his wife, Molly, said, explaining that the impact of the transition was magnified by consideration for their children: Henry, now 15, and Lily, 13.
“But I knew what his passion was and who he’s meant to be,” she continued. “It was always like that part of him was being stifled, to some extent, trying to do it just on the weekends and in the evenings. To allow him to do what he needed to do, we had to make that leap of faith, and honestly, I wish we had done it sooner. I think it’s the best thing we ever did.”
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