Alexis Hunter is an identity-based, multidisciplinary artist currently living and working in Austin, TX. She earned a BFA from Texas State University in Studio Art, with a concentration in painting, graduating summa cum laude (2022). Recent solo and group exhibitions include BINARY (Who Do You Belong To?), ICOSA Collective Gallery, Austin, TX (2021); Own it, examine it, and confront it head on, DORF, Austin, TX (2021); Collective Thoughts, Antenna Gallery, New Orleans, LA (2023); and SBMRPVII, the Carver Museum, Austin, TX (2023). She was selected for the third edition of Big Medium’s LINE Residency (2022) and vol. 2 of the George Washington Carver Museum's Small Black Museum Residency (2022). She is also a member of the artist-run collective, ICOSA, and the newest painting instructor at The Contemporary Austin's Art School at Laguna Gloria. Alexis is the founder of Others, an ongoing publication project documenting the faces and stories of biracial individuals in central Texas. Her work explores self-image through racial identity, mental health, the female body, and the male gaze.
"I use sculpture, painting, performance, and social practice to constantly push myself to my limits to deliver bodies of work at their most honest and vulnerable state. Throughout my experience making art, I’ve found that your best work is made when a certain level of comfort is sacrificed. My current project, HAVEN’T I GIVEN ENOUGH???!!, challenges the policing of women’s bodies under the patriarchy and the misogynistic history of the world.”
My inspiration and references I use in my practice range from literature and dissertations like Dr. Karis Campion’s, “You think you’re Black?” Exploring Black mixed-race experiences of Black rejection, Ethnic and Racial Studies”, to the technique and concepts of biracial contemporary artists making their own identity-based work, like Jennifer Ling Datchuk or Sasha Gordon. I’m interested in what happens when you lay yourself and your biggest insecurities bare and witnessed. And the resulting freedom and better understanding of yourself and your identity that follows."
