In/Tension with Timothy Yanick Hunter
“I think a lot about loops and repetition,” says Toronto-based Timothy Yanick Hunter. For the emerging multimedia artist, music—particularly the potentials of sampling, splicing and layering sound—is deeply interwoven with his work that similarly embraces processes of “collapse and incompletion, of reverb and echoing.”
In episode four of In/Tension, Price welcomes Hunter to further expand on the impact and inspiration that producers and DJs have on his practice. In addition to reflecting on his introduction to sampling, the artist further discusses the rules inherent in appropriation and repurposing, the experience of co-founding the Black Artists Union (BAU) and shares a story that forever changed his life.
Combining painting, sculpture, video, performance, sound, and installation, multidisciplinary artist Timothy Yanick Hunter creates complex bricolages that examine the relationships between various Black and Afro-diasporic experiences alongside contemporary methodologies of decolonization. Hunter’s work often incorporates speculative narratives at the intersections of physical and digital space.
Courtesy Timothy Yanick Hunter
As a testament to and material representation of his voracious research habits, Hunter's work draws from an array of sources such as archives, video, music, text and found images. Once assembled, these sources are harmonized through his unique approach to “referencing," “sampling,” and “remixing,” where—akin to a music producer— the artist appropriates the collected material at his disposal, creating something wholly new and original with these preexisting elements. The resulting works often demonstrate the artist’s interest in actively engaging in the re-contextualization of history.
Timothy Yanick Hunter, True And Functional (Extended), 2023. Image courtesy of Centre Clark. Photography Paul Litherland
Since 2020, Hunter has been featured in a range of exhibitions throughout Toronto, including Basic Instructions Before Leaving Everything (2020) at A Space Gallery (his first solo presentation in a public gallery); Is Love a Synonym for Abolition? (2021) at Gallery 44; Volcanic Spine (2022 at Cooper Cole; and Collapse and Incompletion (2023) at Oakville Galleries.
As an emerging artistic voice, Hunter has already garnered recognition and accolades for his work, having been awarded grants from the Toronto Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts in addition to being short-listed for the 2022 Sobey Art Award.
In/Tension, produced by The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, is a limited podcast series of intimate, thought-provoking and accessible conversations with emerging, mid-career, and established contemporary visual artists across Canada. In/Tension aims to shed light on the breadth of the Canadian contemporary art scene and provide a platform for diverse artistic voices to dive deep into their creative intentions and facets of their practice.
This project is supported by a Digital Now grant from the Canada Council for the Arts.
