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James R Hunt

James Hunt lives and works in Kent and studied at the Kent Institute of Art and Design (now UCA).

“My main inspiration for painting was, and still is, Caravaggio. There is something about his level of no-nonsense realism that always excites me, and although I now admire a wide range of artists, both old and new, I seem to enjoy my painting best when I am back doing what I originally did, which is capturing what I see and simply trying to be as realistic as possible.

Personally, I have never felt the need to dally with any ephemeral or arcane methods of obtaining a good likeness. I merely paint what I see with a great deal of concentration and hard work to try and reach the high standards I have set for myself. Shapes, the often surprising colours, the effect of different lights, etc. are only given cogency - in my opinion - with the paint on the end of one’s brush. And therein, I think, lays solely the manner in which a good artist creates something which is so much more than a photograph - in the intense and personal endeavour to bring that subject to life only in paint, where once there was just blank canvas”.