Ruth Hunter

Ruth Hunter works in oils and cold wax to create paintings which invite emotional and spiritual contemplation. She is an intuitive artist. The product of a repressive home, drawing was her first language.

She works by applying marks, building up and breaking down, layering color over color until the imagery presents. Her subject matter is figurative. Her intent is to provoke a narrative from sense memory. Her use of color is informed by all her senses. She explains, "I never begin with a specific idea in mind. I start with an impulse, a gesture, a color that I react to emotionally in the way a listener reacts in conversation. The stories develop and change as I work. It's very much a conversation with myself.”

Ruth spent much of her rural beginnings on her own where she formed a deep connection to nature and the elements. “No one ever took a photograph of it, at least not one that I have ever seen, but if you were to use your imagination, there near the wet place behind our trailer home, a little girl, barefooted in white cotton covered from knees to neck with that black clay of the prairie land that lies under an East Texas sky, that would be me alright, a child in 1968 with the high cheeked face from a distant native...

Studied painting, life drawing, concepts in design and sculpture at Eastfield and Richland Community colleges - 1987-1992

Selected Solo & Group Exhibitions:

2025 - Group Exhibition - "In The Heat Of It" | Pamela Walsh Gallery - Palo Alto, California

2024 - Group Exhibition/Competition - "Forms Flesh Frame" | Epperson Gallery - Crockett, California | AWARD: 2nd Place in 2D

2024 - Group Exhibition - "144 - 12 x 12" Invitational" | Paul Scott Gallery - Scottsdale, Arizona

2024 - Solo Exhibition - "Of Heart And Hand" - Waterstone Gallery - Portland, Oregon

2024 - Guest Artist Spotlight - Bronze Coast Gallery - Cannon Beach, Oregon

2023 - Group Exhibition - "The Little Big Show" - Waterstone Gallery - Portland, Oregon

2023 - Group Exhibition - "Evolving Visions" - Citron Gallery - Asheville, North Carolina

2023 - Group Exhibition - "Parallel Practice" - Shift Gallery with Waterstone Gallery artists - Seattle, Washington

2023 - Group Exhibition - "Reflections" - Citron Gallery - Asheville, North Carolina

2023 - Group Exhibition - "Portraits, Figures & Selfies" - Oregon Society of Artists - Portland, Oregon

2022 - Solo Exhibition, Brumfield Gallery - Astoria, Oregon

2022 - Citywide open studio - Portland Open Studios - Portland, Oregon

2021 - Solo Exhibition - Brumfield Gallery - Astoria, Oregon

2021 - Site-specific installation ...