Bryan Hunt

Bryan Hunt is known for his contemporary sculpture which explores themes as varied as lakes, airships, and prominent landmarks. His study of water allows him to explore sculptural casting processes as well as natural waterfall compositions. Cast from models in chiseled plaster and wet clay, Hunt's sculptures are made from molten metal which, as it hardens, simulates arrested water. His sculptural cascading forms give, in Hunt's words, "liquid a tangible form." Hunt's aluminum and bronze works, some of which soar up to ten feet in height, recall his fascination with nature, and in particular, with the speed, force, pressure, and current of water running through narrow ravines and gorges. Hunt demonstrates the tension of representing water as an objective source in nature and the subjective reality of sculpture as an art form. The resulting work is the unique coexistence of upward-soaring sculpture and the downward, flowing plunge.

Among Hunt's most distinctive work are the Fusiforms, light airships made of balsa wood and finished with metallic patinas. These elegant forms, which are metaphors for objects in flight, seem to defy gravity. They jump off the walls or stand in pedestals, and although they are recognizable in their form, they convey a sense of abstraction before anything else, not unlike the artist's Waterfalls. In 2006, Hunt was commissioned by the city of New York to create a sculpture for Coenties Slip Park in Lower Manhattan, a site mentioned on the first page of Melville's Moby Dick. Coenties Ship, as it is called, is a twenty-one foot tall sculpture fabricated in stainless steel and glass. It is part of Hunt's Airship series. In 2011 Hunt's ten-year survey of his Waterfall sculpture series was displayed on Park Avenue between 52nd and 57th streets in Manhattan. It was the largest and most ambitious outdoor display of his work to date spanning from 1977 to 2006, brought together for the first time. On behalf of the City of New York, he also designed commemorative pieces from World Trade Center steel later given to families of the victims of 9/11.