Kenny Hunter FRSS

Artists Statement                                                                                            Kenny Hunter

My practice as a sculptor can be described as an ongoing effort to deconstruct the monument as a permanent symbol of political and historic progress and instead re-present it as a form in flux, open to varied interpretation. Within my sculptures both contemporary societal paradigms and historical monumental archetypes overlay and interact with each other.

Over the years my Art practice been centred on articulating History as a fragmented, incoherent and subjective experience. This has been expressed through inverting traditional monumental values and certainties with unexpected uses of scale, material and subject matter, opening up questions for the viewer rather than providing answers.

Using this process I hope to generate engagement from a diverse public audience, asking them to reconsider both the future role of the monument and its legacy, provoking questions such as - what they are for, what do they represent and who do they serve?  And how do we open up a space for the open and plural counter monument to flourish while at the same time following the imperative to remember?

Against the expectations of traditional monuments my counter monuments deliberately avoid a singular reading and instead embrace ambiguity as a positive position that encourages the viewer toward ethical and moral engagement rather than passive consumption of official historical perspectives. As a sculptor of representational form my work is traditional without being conventional. Standard or normative modes are used against themselves so that something genuinely fresh and newly relevant can be forged.

I view the gallery as an experimental site where I can test out my ideas and enter into dialogue with my peers about what my work addresses, but the ultimate point of this engagement is to return to the public space where the impulse to make work and to be an artist for me begins.