Benjamin Hunt (Living Room Gallery)
Typecast as a cubism revivalist after his first exhibitions, Benjamin Hunt has more recently drawn on personal history and refrigerators to express a unique patriotic vision in the crayon-on-furniture work America: Land of Carpet, a previously unexhibited "Scribble Essay" that completes this retrospective, running through December in the Living Room Gallery. The last-minute addition to this mixed-media show, Hunt's first since the confrontational Crayons of Rage installation in the Linoleum Space, offers a fresh new direction for the ever-evolving young artist, combining brooding social commentary with frequent references to the haute-kitsch imagery in his later food works. The arguably Christian imagery in Hunt's controversial neo-religious work Peas Christ created a storm of debate among religious conservatives and foodies alike.
Andy Warhol was known to have said "people like things big," and Hunt seems to have taken this advice to heart, as demonstrated by his mid-period works, Mashed Yam Chronicle #4 and Elvis Spit-up. In these large and hard-to-clean works, the viewer is challenged, implicated, subdued and finally forced to participate in the piece, considering their own role in the cycle of mortality as they wipe themselves clean. - Martin Azevedo, Tantrum Review