Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Alexis Hunter. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Alexis thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

I’ve been fortunate enough to have more than a few meaningful projects in my practice so far! Some highlights would definitely have to include my beloved Others project and most recently, INVASIVE SPECIES. Others is a social practice project documenting the faces and stories of 34 biracial individuals in central Texas. The publication includes portraits shot on 35mm film and each participant received a questionnaire style interview with questions pertaining to their social experience and racial identity as a biracial person. There is also an accompanying video work. Dialogue surrounding these subjects is something I see missing in fine art spaces and literature. This project highlights and celebrates the individuals that navigate the space between cultures and offers connection and togetherness to an otherwise isolating experience. I spent so much of my life feeling like I didn’t belong and it was fun to create a new community of others (!!!) that felt the same. Pretty much all of the participants I interviewed had never had a conversation like that much less with a fellow biracial person. It was a very fulfilling project and I’m looking forward to continuing this series.

INVASIVE SPECIES is my most recent project and my first ever curatorial endeavor! Currently exhibiting at the ICOSA Collective Gallery, INVASIVE SPECIES is a group exhibition curated by myself and Jacqueline Overby, featuring thirteen women-identifying artists examining womanhood in a multi-generational habitat of male-ordained moral, sexual, and spiritual repression and exploitation. Each artist has her own unique perspective and biome of references. Whether it’s religious trauma, generational trauma, sexual trauma, or revenge, INVASIVE SPECIES is an opportunity to explore these painful themes from many perspectives like that of a fat woman, a trans woman, a Black woman, a formerly incarcerated woman, a mother.

Check out more stuff about the Others project and INVASIVE SPECIES at @others_project_ and @invasive_species_atx on Instagram!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name’s Alexis Hunter. I’m an artist, educator, and curator currently living in Austin, TX! I earned my BFA from Texas State University in Studio Art, graduating summa cum laude, in 2022. Recent solo and group exhibitions of mine include INVASIVE SPECIES, ICOSA Collective Gallery, Austin, TX; Own it, examine it, and confront it head on, DORF, Austin, TX; Collective Thoughts, Antenna Gallery, New Orleans, LA; and SBMRPVII, the Carver Museum, Austin, TX.

In 2022, I participated in Big Medium’s LINE Residency and vol. 2 of the George Washington Carver Museum’s Small Black Museum Residency Project. In 2023, I was shortlisted for Big Medium’s Tito’s Prize, named the Best Visual Artist of Austin by the Austin Chronicle, and selected to participate in MASS Gallery’s Hot Box Residency. I’m also a member of the artist-run collective, ICOSA, and a painting instructor at The Contemporary Austin’s Art School at Laguna Gloria! My 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. HAVEN’T I GIVEN ENOUGH??!! is informed by several factors, one of them being my life-long insecurities about my own body and how I see that experience intersect with social constructs like western beauty standards and fatphobia.

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. HAVEN’T I GIVEN ENOUGH?!! was inspired by kaiju, a Japanese media genre involving giant monsters, and movies like, Merian C. Cooper’s King Kong, Honda Ishirō’s Godzilla, and Nathan H. Juran’s Attack of the 50 Foot Woman.

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. My current series features me completely nude. Previously, the only people that have seen me nude are me and my long-term boyfriend. Now my fully nude, unconventionally attractive fat body is being seen by the world. I like to think of it as exposure therapy. After releasing this series, other fat women that look like me have expressed to me that they feel seen. There is no comparison for the feeling of fulfillment I get when I’m able to connect to the viewer in this way.

You can currently view my work at the George Washington Carver Museum or during my upcoming Hot Box Residency with Mass Gallery!

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being an artist is connecting with the viewer!

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

Give us money please :)     

Contact Info:

• Website: www.alexishunter.work
• Instagram: @m00n_daddy