Artist Kevin Hunt’s STRAIGHTFACE series of wall-based sculptures utilise 1970s buffetware. Undergoing laborious 're-production' (a term Hunt uses to talk about sending manufactured objects back to a factory for additional work) to reach their final state, each tray has been waterjet cut with a unique composition of holes, relinquishing the objects of their original responsibility as containers by piercing them. Once back in the studio a final swill with paint glazes over any imperfections the freshly ‘re-made’ objects have. The former containers now holding only their own new identity. Reminiscent of faces, each sculpture reflects the complexities of Hunt’s own queer identity and how that has and is changing over time. The artist’s mother was a caterer and these are the kind of objects that surrounded him during his formative years growing up on a council estate in Liverpool. Grappling with feelings of keeping things in or holding back, the works mark the experience of moving on from ingrained teenage repression.
