Artist in conversation: Hunter Henotic
“Art was the quiet place I kept coming back to where I could express my inner world without having to say anything”
Hunter Henotic’s art is a vibrant exploration of colour - an ode to psychedelia. Through vivid hues and rhythm, she aims to evoke a sensory experience that transcends reality. Each piece is a vibration of chromatic expression, inviting viewers into a neon kaleidoscopic journey where boundaries between perception and imagination blur. In this blacklight realm, she seeks to express amplified emotions and stimulate the mind's eye, creating a visual trip that resonates with the interconnectedness of the soul. Her art is a vibrant exploration of colour-- an ode to psychedelia.
Through vivid hues and rhythm, she aims to evoke a sensory experience that transcends reality. Each piece is a vibration of chromatic expression, inviting viewers into a neon kaleidoscopic journey where boundaries between perception and imagination blur. In this blacklight realm, she seeks to express amplified emotions and stimulate the mind's eye, creating a visual trip that resonates with the interconnectedness of the soul.
| Instagram |
What initially inspired you to become an artist, and how did you develop your unique style?
I don’t think I really chose to become an artist.. I think I was born as one. Art was the quiet place I kept coming back to where I could express my inner world without having to say anything. I think my style really took hold when I became engrossed with portraiture and my affinity for colors
In terms of subject matter, what themes or motifs do you frequently explore in your work, and what draws you to these topics?
Lines are so fundamental to any art piece, but the optics of many and various lines together that viscerally move your eyes around really resonate with the visual representation of what I try to create and embody in my work. I am drawn to the vividity of psychedelia, texture of gore, and jarring imagery because of the sensory stimulation that provokes an emotional and psychological response.
What initially drew you to explore the world of vibrant colors and psychedelia in your artwork?
No two people see the exact same color because the rod and cone cell differentiation number varies person to person. That amazes me to begin with. I grew up with a mother whose decor included blacklights, glow stars on the ceiling, and a glowing fluorescent pink blanket that had a giant metallic silver star in the center. I always felt entranced and in another world with the blacklight on. I wanted to dive into the experience further than the printed posters you can snag at a smoke shop or the limited printings of the 60s and 70s concert posters. I wanted to recreate the sensation of a physical experience for anyone who views it.
What themes or concepts do you find yourself returning to in your art, and why do they resonate with you?
There’s a couple.. Love. Love of humanity and our humanness, and romantic love–heartache included. There is a certain essential dichotomy in love and heartache, just as there is with light and darkness. You can’t have a rainbow without the rain. I feel both immensely and deeply; I am open to sharing my heart with others in hopes of our interconnectedness being a beacon of light–metaphorically and literally. These concepts resonate with me because of how personal the pieces I create are. Every piece is from my own experience in how I conceptualize, internalize, and explore my own humanity through color and rhythm.
Can you share a specific piece or project that holds particular significance to you, and walk us through the creative process behind it?
Well, this project was a bit of me laying my heart open for sutures and rejection or love and open arms. It started in 2020 when someone I was very close to came out of the woodworks. At the time, we hadn’t spoken in three years, but when he reached out and we talked, all these feelings came back. The bliss, the heartache, the anxiety of abandonment, the unconditional love. It was a whirlwind and I didn’t know where to put all these feelings or how to communicate them. It became an ebb and flow of feelings and I created what I felt. How can you show someone how much they make you feel? I decided to tell him what I should have back then, before we stopped being in communication. He said he didn’t know how deeply I felt, so I wanted to show him and for him to know for certain. I ended up creating books chronologically about our story, 2013-2020. I made two books and multiple pieces of art to try to feel it all out–good, ugly, desire, love, lust, longing, yearning, lovesickness, time. I went to San Francisco to see him. I fell in love with the vibrancy of the city and the creative history San Francisco holds. I ended up moving to San Francisco, which is where I reside now. The last piece of this body of work ended up being a painting of an anatomical heart with the famous quote: “I left my heart in San Francisco”. For me, I really did leave my whole heart in San Francisco. For longer than I would like to admit: he is, and will always be, my whole heart.
How do you incorporate feedback from critics and audiences into your artistic practice, and how do you balance this feedback with your own artistic intuition?
I try to incorporate the positive and the negative because it's so vital to the balance of intake and resonation. I am a bit of a perfectionist to the point of not starting anything until I know what the end will look like in my head. The most important realization in critique was to create for art’s sake. It isn’t all perfection, but it’s all me. It is all a part of my humanness and my experience in this life–therein is the balance of it all.
How do you stay motivated and inspired despite any setbacks or creative blocks you may encounter?
I think lack of motivation and being uninspired is a part of the creative process that isn’t really discussed. Life has lulls. The creative process is the same. Inspiration strikes when it does. In the downs and in the lulls, I try to remember that I still have a voice to use. I still have ideas and feelings to share because that is a part of my artistic experience.
How do you feel about exhibiting your artworks with The Holy Art Gallery?
I am over the moon to be exhibiting my pieces with The Holy Art Gallery. This is a special opportunity to connect with other artists internationally and within the US, and I have felt supported by the team/organization throughout the showcasing process.
Looking ahead, what are your long-term goals and aspirations as an artist, and how do you plan to achieve them?
I sincerely aim–and hope to–have my own solo blacklight exhibition that marks itself as a designated and robust shooting off point for my career. I plan to keep creating, keep exploring, and keep striving for my honest and most authentic experience and connecting with others who share similar artistic endeavors and visions. Eventually things will fall into place when it's meant to be. I trust that I will end up where I need to be when it's time and that co creation will occur when it's meant to.
What role does emotion play in your creative process, and how do you aim to evoke specific feelings or reactions from those who view your artworks?
I feel like my art is my emotional world on display for everyone to see and take how they resonate with it. It's my own experience, so not everything will resonate, but I do hope to capture the feeling I feel, with neon colors and splashes of glitter, with what I create. I want to transcend a level of viewership by having others enter my blacklight realm. I think a lot of people have been exposed to psychedelic art and, with the acceptance of psychedelics being a form of healing, there’s a growing number of people who have had psychedelic experiences. I aim to do this by recreating the intense and vivid interaction with color and movement hoping people can resonate with the interconnectedness I feel being human and amongst the web of everyone else.
