Tom Hunter

In 1998, the London based artist Tom Hunter was awarded the Kobal Photographic Portrait Prize for "Woman Reading a Possession Order", an image of a young woman standing at a window reading an eviction notice with a baby at her side. This work, part of his "Persons Unknown" series, directly references Vermeer's "A Girl Reading at the Open Window", using both its composition, colour and play of light to produce an image that, as with Vermeer's representations of the Dutch working class, ennobles his subjects. Hunter's concern with the political issues surrounding the rights of "squatters", "travellers" and all those viewed as "outsiders", is reflected in his choice and treatment of his subjects. In 1998 while travelling around Europe, Hunter began a new series of portraits entitled "Travellers", which focused on the domestic environment of this nomadic group. In his most recent work begun in 1999, collectively entitled "Life and Death in Hackney" Hunter focused on a community living in and around the London borough of Hackney.
Many of the photographs in this series are based on Pre-Raphaelite paintings, and in so doing Hunter overlays art historical references with stories from the everyday lives of those around him. This publication brings together these three bodies of work.