March 31 – May 28, 2023
Currents is a gallery space dedicated to recognizing the work of emerging and evolving California artists. Featuring a different artist every two months, Currents presents a range of media, styles, and genres.
As a born-and-bred Californian, I’m particularly interested in our state’s vast array of wildflowers and the pollinators who visit them. As I’ve learned about those floral visitors, I’ve felt compelled to draw and paint them as a way of showing others what I see. Most people can recognize hummingbirds and at least a couple of pollinating insects—swallowtail and monarch butterflies, maybe, or honeybees and bumblebees—but California is home to a staggering 1,600 species of native bees, over 1,000 species of butterflies and moths, and scads of other pollinating insects like flower flies and tiny wasps.
My goal as an artist is to introduce people to some of the beautiful flowers, insects, and pollinating birds that surround us (plus some that come from further afield). Artwork depicting the real organisms that inhabit our world can remind us to look up from devices and take a closer look around. My hope is that my art inspires viewers to observe their own world and develop a deeper connection with nature.
– Erin E. Hunter
About the Artist
Erin E. Hunter is a painter and science illustrator based in Monterey Bay. Apart from a few years in New York and an internship in Washington, D.C., she’s always been based in California—from as far north as Chico to as far south as Escondido. The Golden State landscapes that Erin calls home now influence her work as an artist: the arid foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains; the sunny suburbs of the East Bay; the winding rivers and streams of the Sacramento Valley; and today, the pine forests and oak woodlands of Monterey County. Over the last fifteen years, Erin E. Hunter has exhibited throughout California and the United States in solo and group exhibitions that include the San Francisco Botanical Garden’s Library of Horticulture (2022), Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History (2021), and the Chico Art Center (2020).
Image: Erin E. Hunter, Floral Compass, 2017, acrylic on watercolor paper, 24″ x 24″.