Where There Is Art, There Is Hope with Birds, Butterflies, and Bunnies

I want to thank Hunt Slonem for giving me, giving the world his artistic vision that conveys the innate joy and healing power of the natural world, using his art to reflect the divine beauty found within everyday creatures that is rooted in the spiritual celebration of nature, biodiversity, and transformation.

In the fall of 1998, running from September 17 to October 17, 1998 world renowned oil painter Hunt Slonem held a solo exhibition titled “Recent Paintings” at Marlborough Gallery in New York City. The show featured his signature expressionistic paintings of colorful tropical birds that was reviewed by The New York Times with the art critique Ken Johnson highlighting Slonem’s signature textured, hatch-marked style used to represent aviary mesh, that contained the "impulsive energy" of his dreamy, neo-expressionist tropical bird and butterfly canvases.

Hunt Slonem originally signed with the legendary Marlborough Gallery in 1980 which famously represented other blue-chip artists like Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, and Henry Moore. This milestone kicked off an 18-year representation partnership, which resulted in numerous solo exhibitions and significantly helped establish Slonem’s career in the explosive contemporary art scene allowing him to build a dazzling international reputation for his neo-expressionist paintings of bunnies, butterflies, and exotic birds, placing his work into prominent institutional and private collections.

His vibrant work is now housed in the permanent collections of over 250 museums worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. And his work is showcased by a wide global network of partner galleries and institutions, including but not limited to the Richard Taittinger Gallery and the Contessa Gallery.

It was Slonem’s “Recent Paintings” exhibition during the fall of 1998 – at a time when the gloomy mood on Wall Street was defined by intense panic, extreme volatility, and deep-seated fear of a global economic meltdown – where for first time I laid eyes on his work. I was captivated by his ingenuity of artistic style and subject matter. He brought multi colored Amazonian tropical birds into the lives of Manhattanites.

Staring hypnotically at Slonem’s paintings, I momentarily forgot about the widespread anxiety on Wall Street primarily driven by the lingering 1997 Asian financial crisis, Russia's sudden debt default, and the near collapse of the highly leveraged hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) that rattled the entire global financial system. At the time, Wall Street the financial center of the world – New York city's securities industry – generated approximately 56 percent of the city's real earnings growth – primarily by global macro hedge funds like Soros Fund Management, Tiger Management and Moore Capital Management that successfully bet against the heavily leveraged trades of LTCM – and employed about 4.7 percent of New York City's total workforce including  me as an international securities tax attorney who served as the general counsel of a failed hedge fund. Instead of getting caught up in the drama of the global financial markets, or the incompetence of the hedge fund managers I was employed by, I embraced Slonem’s colorful world and his hopeful message.

I walked out of the exhibition admiring Slonem’s colorful cocktail jacket, that complimented his bird paintings and concluded that where there is art, there is creativity and hope. Slonem’s paintings  had a profound impact on me. I began noticing the colony of wild green parrot populations (primarily Monk parakeets and Ring-necked parakeets) thriving in northern latitudes due to a fascinating result of their intelligence, varied diet, and tolerance for human-modified landscapes. Global warming and milder winters had significantly expanded their survival range, while urban heat islands and artificial bird feeders provided year-round warmth and abundant food sources. In North America New York, Boston, Chicago, Vancouver, in Europe, London, Istanbul, Rome, Brussels, Amsterdam all had established green parrot populations. Green parrot species were no longer limited to living in the tropics anymore.

I want to thank Hunt Slonem for giving me, giving the world his artistic vision that conveys the innate joy and healing power of the natural world, using his art to reflect the divine beauty found within everyday creatures that is rooted in the spiritual celebration of nature, biodiversity, and transformation. I want to wish him a happy birthday and thank him for gracing the Statue of Liberty Exhibition at the National Lighthouse Museum curated by Stevie Peters with his art to celebrate many milestones including the 250th anniversary of our nation, 140th anniversary of Statue of Liberty and his 75th birthday.