Michael John Hunter

I’ve always been fascinated with scale; I think this is built into us all.

As a child, like many others, I had toys and model sets that mimicked the grown up reality I knew I was destined for but didn’t understand yet. This reality was full of fantasy and endless possibility. When I held these things in my hands they came to life. Baudelaire says, “The toy is the child’s earliest initiation into art.” Toys illustrate a child’s raw imagination and supply them with an outlet for exploring their minds and themselves.

As adults it’s common to lose the ability to access this kind of childish thinking. Our amazement at simple things and the sense of possibility in the world can easily become masked. It’s from this idea that my work starts.

My photographs use illusion to try to reconnect to the childlike fascination with objects and the possibility of realities that are just out of reach. Once viewers understand the illusion I hope they remember their own long lost toys and can see with a juvenile mindset, if only fleetingly.

My work involves making large, detailed sculptures of small objects and taking photographs of them installed in London locations. The doll is a 17-foot sculpture and the fly is 13. I shoot the works...

2009 – 2011 The National Film and Television School
Master of Arts Film and Television

2004 - 2008 The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh College of Art (ECA)
Bachelor of Arts, Photography.