Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Open Studios STL 2014 - John Joseph Hunn

John Joseph Hunn

As mentioned yesterday, Anna Chekhovskaya, the young artist posing in a picture frame, was visiting the studio of painter John Joseph Hunn. He describes himself as a figurative artist. That's true, but an inadequate description. Some of his work has a Gothic Christian setting of contemporary subjects. Others are on a large scale with a juxtaposition of elements that make you stop and use your brain. A view of the whole painting seen in the top photo is the first on this list.

There is a collection of odd objects around his studio. Below are copies of the ventriloquist's dummies Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead, made famous by Paul Winchell when I was a kid. My art history isn't good enough to know whether the relief mask behind them is Greco-Roman or much later neoclassical (the expression and horror-show hair make me think it's the latter) but the combination is wonderful.   

Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead

5 comments:

Olivier said...

j'adore la deuxieme photo avec les marionnettes

Norma said...

Interesting....

Jack said...

I like his paintings and your portrait of him. Having him sitting and facing out of the photo made me reflect for a moment on that choice . . .

William Kendall said...

John's style is very eyecatching!

PerthDailyPhoto said...

The full image of John's painting is pretty amazing Bob, I'm in awe of his talent.. bit not so keen on his decor, those ventriloquist dummies freak me out... shuddering :)