Attributed to Hunt Slonem, no coa, private collection, medium: oil, measurements: 26"Hx32"W framed, mint condition Biography: Hunt Slonem is an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker. He is best known for his Neo-Expressionist paintings of butterflies, bunnies, and his tropical birds, often based on a personal aviary in which he has been keeping from 30 to over 100 live birds of various species. Hunt Slonem's oil paintings pivot between the fantastic and the natural. These natural forms ultimately become the subjects for many of his artworks, appearing in large lavishly colored paintings and constructed sculptures. As an artist, he endeavors to explore the many expressive faculties of color. His paintings are layered with thick brushstrokes of vivid color, often cut into in a cross-hatched pattern that adds texture to the overall surface of the painting. Slonem often hides his subjects "behind a grid of incised lines, blurring their contours and emphasizing the paint's tactile quality."This surface patterning combines with the rich colors and recognizable subject matter to create paintings that are physically and aesthetically rich. Poet and critic John Ashbery observed, "From the narrow confines of his grids, half cage, half perch, Slonem summons dazzling explosions of the variable life around us that need only to be looked at in order to spring into being."