The Grenning Gallery is pleased to announce our Annual Solo Show for Hunt Slonem! Please join us and meet the artist at the Opening Reception, Thursday, June 19th from 6:00 to 7:30 pm at 26 Main Street, Sag Harbor, NY, 11963.
The exhibition hangs through Sunday, July 13th, 2025. There will be a Closing Party on July 12, from 5:00 to 7:00pm. The Grenning Gallery will have Slonem works on display and available for viewing all year round.
The Grenning Gallery was founded to represent painters with a naturalist impulse. Hunt Slonem despite his distinct style with bold colors and thick brushwork, is no exception. Slonem’s work stands out to us for its spiritual inspiration and steadfast aesthetic. His work is not only grounded in a deep respect and awe of nature, but the man himself is a deeply spiritual person; His artwork is an expression of the life he leads. Slonem nurtures a mystical connection with all that he loves, thus his process of art-making is a ritual in and of itself.
In this year’s show, we have selected a series of wide ranging subjects, yet they are linked by their sensitivity to color and light. His paintings, while they appear simple in subject, are charged with the artist’ joy, love, and pure fascination. The result of this artistic process is paintings that infuse a room with vibrant, positive energy.
In Slonem’s larger works, the populated space of his paintings is both maximalist and minimalist. His iconic repetition birds, bunnies, and butterflies, often transcends ordinary subjects and transforms into a mesmerizing pattern. By filling a canvas with the same subject in this repetitious way, Slonem’s paintings become a mantra – quieting the senses, captivating the viewer with rich flora and fauna. These paintings are puzzles we can’t help but try to figure out. This approach to his subjects, combined with his many processes of handling the paint, results in truly hypnotic compositions, both aesthetically pleasing and critically engaging.
Hunt Slonem remains nature’s devotee when it comes to the subjects of his paintings. His loyalty to his birds, bunnies, and butterflies give us insight into the mind of the artist, his message, and his process. Playful, joyous, even childlike on the surface, these paintings are warm and welcoming. However, when we look closely and consider why he chooses these animals, we find a profound underpinning to his work.
The rabbit is a timeless symbol of purity, innocence, and vulnerability. The bird represents freedom and hope, and the butterfly, of course, symbolizes transformation and rebirth. These symbols are so pure they need not be tainted nor obscured; His pop-art adjacent style showcases this message with concise clarity. Such simplicity evokes a natural, instinctual skepticism from viewers, effectively grasping our attention with its boldness. A simple realist painting of a rabbit may not hold the contemporary viewer for very long, but Hunt Slonem’s work is challenging the modern instinct to overlook the natural environment. Instead, he invites us to look deeper.
During his time studying abroad in tropical climates such as Mexico and Nicaragua, he recalls a single moment when he was in a jungle surrounded by butterflies;
“…Each more iridescent and gorgeous than the next. The memory stayed with me for my whole life, and I just painted them over and over again…Hardly a day goes by that I don’t reference this experience.” explained Slonem.
Hunt Slonem’s dedication to recalling and representing the energy of these experiences is what makes his work so enchanting. Laura Grenning, the founder of Grenning Gallery, has always had an animist understanding of all paintings, since the inception of the gallery in 1998. Grenning believes that the viewer’s feelings when looking at a painting are akin to the feelings that the painter had when they were creating it. In the context of Hunt Slonem, we recognize the pure joy and connection that he channels during his creative process, and that by returning to these familiar subjects, he is also returning to those profound memories of his youth. Slonem’s spirituality is imbued into each of his paintings, and in kind, these paintings reward the viewer in unexpected and deeply moving ways.
This explains why many collectors of Slonem’s paintings often come back for more after buying just one small bunny. Demand for his work remains strong after over 40 years of showing. Slonem’s paintings can be found in over 250 museums around the world, and he is represented in over 80 galleries globally. The unapologetic and infectious joy from these paintings is something we just can’t take our eyes off of.
