Professor Tom Hunter

Biography

Tom Hunter is an award winning and internationally acclaimed artist. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Tom has earned several awards during his career, including an Honorary Doctorate of the Arts from the University of East London in 2011 for his work documenting the lives of the people of East London and Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society in 2010.

Tom graduated from the London College of Printing in 1994 with his work 'The Ghetto', which is now on permanent display at the Museum of London. He studied for his MA at the Royal College of Art, where, in 1996, he was awarded the Photography Prize by Fuji Film for his series ‘Travellers’. In 1998 ‘Woman Reading a Possession Order’ from his series ‘Persons Unknown’, won the John Kobal Photographic Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery.

In 2006 Tom became the only artist to have a solo photography show at the National Gallery for his series ‘Living in Hell and Other Stories’, which talked about Hackney and its relationship to its local paper. His works are in many collections around the world including; MOMA, New York, National Gallery, London, The V&A, London, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Smithsonian, Washington and the Los Angles County Museum of Art.

Professor Tom Hunter has been working as an artist for the past twenty years, using photography to explore and represent his community and neighbourhood, through its people, architecture and landscape. As part of his continuing work practice he researches and references popular culture, art history and the media representation of both his own local community and the community of the artist throughout history.

Hunter interweaves art history, photographic practice and popular culture to create vibrant, colourful artworks, which illuminate East London. His work seeks to break stereotypes, provoke thought, raise debate and shed light on these communities and the issues they face. Hunter seeks to create a new visual language in fine art practice, which blurs the boundaries between staged photography and documentary. Throughout his career Professor Hunter’s photographic art practice has aimed to question the role of photography in society and to take it into new arenas and to new audiences.