SMILE! by Scott Hunt

Join us for an open house viewing of Visual AIDS Artist Member Scott Hunt's new multimedia series SMILE!

Hunt's work will be on view during our open house reception from 6-8pm on Thursday, Nov. 6, and on view Friday, Nov. 7 during Visual AIDS office hours (11am-5:30pm). This pop-up exhibition is part of Hunt's recent NYSCA Support for Artists grant, which is fiscally sponsored by Visual AIDS.

Light refreshments will be available during Thursday's open house.

More about SMILE!

Through a combination of drawing and 3-D objects, SMILE! explores the dynamic of women continually being told that they’d be more attractive, more desired, more valued if they just—fill in the blank—got thinner, blonder, had tighter skin, wore more revealing clothing, or indeed, just smiled. Some of the societal and cultural pathologies resulting from that messaging include the ramifications of gender biases and norms; the racism of commonly-held, Eurocentric ideas of beauty; the trend of compulsive cosmetic surgery; and the hyper-sexualization of young girls. Furthermore, this dysfunction feeds a multi-billion-dollar beauty industry, creating a financial incentive that is in direct conflict with the psychological damage that such cultural brainwashing perpetuates. 

SMILE! consists of skillfully-realized, enigmatic, and darkly funny two-dimensional narrative drawings. These meticulous drawings of unsmiling women based on cabinet cards, a popular form of portraiture of the late 1800s are augmented with various 3-D objects — beauty products such as false eyelashes and makeup, hair extensions, lingerie, jewelry, as well as objects that speak to what was traditionally referred to as “women’s work,” including tea balls, needle-and-thread, thimbles— and mount them within Joseph Cornell-like box frames. SMILE! walks a line between curiosity cabinet specimens, social/historical documents, family heirlooms, and decorative collectibles.