Margaret Hunter

Margaret Hunter was born in 1948 in Ayrshire, Scotland. She studied at the Glasgow School of Art (1981–85) and under Professor Georg Baselitz at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin.

Her exhibitions history is as extensive in the UK as it is in Germany: Berlin–Scotland–Transfer, Galerie IX, Berlin (1988) and Städtisches Museum, Halberstadt (1991); Maiden Chambers, paintings and sculpture Mathematische Fachbibliothek, Technishe Universität Berlin (2008), Changing Places, Collins Gallery, Strathclyde University and tour (1992–93). Within a decade, work has entered the collections of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, the Scottish Arts Council, Fleming Wyfold Collection, Chelsea & Westminster Hospital, London, and many corporate collections in Germany.

Margaret is represented in the UK by Art First, London. It was Margaret who described her own work, as well as Art First’s tendencies, as being “Afro-Hebridean”. Primarily concerned with the human figure as a vehicle for expression, it took an encounter with the art of Georg Baselitz to reconnect Hunter with her own childhood memories of the art and culture of Nigeria.

Margaret paints in richly textured oil on board or canvas, and produces constant series of drawings or ’ideas’ in pastel and charcoal, as well as extending her themes in sculptures. Themes and symbols evolve through the work as she explores a choreography of gestures that express states of mind or particular feelings. The graphic, physical nature of her art comes from an instinctive approach to the human body and an intuitive sense of freedom fostered by her interest in ’primitive’ art and expressionism in general.