Ken Hunt

Ken’s passion and enthusiasm for his art, and his birds, can be quite overwhelming; from the flash of colour in a bird’s wings to the way they frolic outside his art studio window. This love shines through in his work; each painting is a combination of incredible micro detail, a huge number of strokes and intense concentration. They can take up to a month, a large slice of his life. “Unfortunately,” Ken says, “I haven’t the stamina I used to have as I had a major head injury several years ago, or I’d paint birds all day.”

Ken’s internationally acclaimed “Goldie paintings” are renowned for their spectacular eye for detail, and his commissions for Peter Jackson and Weta’s Richard Taylor, featured at his 2007 exhibition at Rona Gallery in Eastbourne. The Goldie paintings started off as a way to understand traditional painting techniques and later became very popular in their own right. Recently Ken’s art has become motivated more by love than sales, and his true passion for painting birds has won out.

Ken has a special love of sparrows. “They are one of the most amazingly cute birds.” His first bird commission was a sparrow. But that doesn’t mean that he’s only interested in sparrows. “Tui’s have got personality,” Ken says recounting the story of a Maori lady who rescued a tui from mouth of a cat a few years ago. “She taught it to talk and then released it at the Nga Manu Nature Reserve in Waikanae, with a new chortle: “Pommy Bastards.”

It was his love of birds that brought Ken together with his wife. She has hand-reared kingfishers, tui, blackbird and sparrows. Ken had a sick chicken and she brought it back life.

Ken also has a special connection with Kapiti Island as his Wai Rewa ancestors are buried there.