Matt Hunt

Matt Hunt’s show at Peter McLeavey’s is on for another two weeks. If you haven’t been to see them yet, I strongly encourage you to do so. You can’t purchase one though. They’ve all sold already, which is not bad going during a recession.

Matt’s a friend of mine, so I’m not exactly unbiased. However, I’m pretty sure my opinion of his work wouldn’t be different if I didn’t know him. His paintings are both visually compelling (especially in the afternoon light through McLeavey’s windows) and conceptually coherent. And, boy, are they coherent.

Matt’s developed his own elaborate belief system over many years. It’s highly detailed and very consistent, which is more than can be said for some science fiction writers (and philosophers for that matter). Even though he’s quite sincere in his beliefs, he can still have fun with them, and there are some nice little jokes in there.

It’s not a belief system I share, but that doesn’t matter. We each respect each other’s point of view, and our arguments never get nasty (even when I'm drunk!). And, in a way, his is a common-sense nihilist position (paradoxical as that seems). He’s developed his own world view on his own terms, and when you get right down to it that’s what matters – living life and producing work on nobody else’s terms but your own.

He’s got extensive files documenting his system, and I reckon he should publish them as a book.