Barb Hunt

Barb Hunt is an interdisciplinary textile artist based in Corner Brook, Newfoundland. Her work has been about the devastation of war: knitting antipersonnel land mines in pink wool and creating works from camouflage army uniforms. Such work contrasts knitting as a warming, protective art, against the violence of war. Her work has also reflected on her Canadian identity.

A feminist, Hunt has also created large cut steel dresses and a series of embroidered sayings about women on 1940s-1950s sheer aprons. Some of her series focused on the rituals of mourning, particularly those of Newfoundland. These involved huge collections of cemetery flowers, traditional shroud cutwork, black lace and sea-worn quartz stones from Newfoundland beaches.

Hunt says about her work: "In my art practice, I attempt to mend separations, and to reveal and recuperate the "feminine" which historically has been discredited. By giving value to the humble, the discarded and the hand-made, I hope to recover lost histories and encourage the re-consideration of traditional rituals within a contemporary context."

In a 2013 talk given for the Wendy Wersch Memorial Queen's UniversityLecture Series in Winnipeg, entitled We are all of us made by war, Hunt described how her grandmothers made quilts and her mother taught her craft.

Hunt received her undergraduate degree from the University of Manitoba School of Art in Winnipeg in 1982. She completed her post-graduate studies at the Concordia University in Montréal, Québec in 1994. From 1995-1996, Hunt taught at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario. Between 1997 and 2001 she taught at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. Hunt has taught in the Visual Arts Program, Grenfell Campus of Memorial University of Newfoundland in Corner Brook in 1996-1997, and permanently from 2001. In 2015, she inaugurated their first textile-based course.

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