L'Éternel Recommencement. Pharrell Williams Portrait intervened by the artists, 2020

Cristian Hunter   Emerging artists

 Acrylic and oil pastel on Pigment Print Image size: 76 cm. H x 61 cm. W Framed size: 90.5 cm. H x 82.5 cm. W x 5 cm. D.

This artwork was created by the artistic duo Hunter & Gatti (2010–2023). These works are part of the archive managed and exhibited by Cristian Hunter. The artist's technique consists of the use of two prints, the first print is the original photography, and the second print is a blurry version of the image printed on glass. The glass version of the picture is shattered with an iron tool to be able to control the rupture. The artists glued the glass parts on top of the original picture, creating a blurred effect. The artists explore even further the infinite possibilities of transformation by turning something as temporary as a fashion editorial, into something completely different and original; a unique piece of art.  

Cristian Hunter’s work starts from that belief. His photographs —created over a solid international career— are not mere documents, but open territories where painting, texture, and gesture expand photography into new dimensions of meaning. Hunter explores how an image can shift in meaning over time—how context, memory, and manual intervention can transform what was once captured into something newly revealed. Each piece is an invitation to look again, to uncover what lies beneath the visible. Guided by the premise that “nothing stays still,” he works from his personal archive, reinterpreting it, giving new life to what was once lived, and breaking the linear flow between past and present. His lens has captured renowned figures such as Pharrell Williams, Penélope Cruz, Jennifer Lopez, Ewan McGregor, Lalisa Manoban, Adria Arjona, and Bruno Mars, among many others. Yet his focus goes beyond portraiture—what truly interests him is what remains when the image stops being literal and begins to emerge as a living object. His current body of work includes both new pieces and selected artworks from the artistic legacy of Hunter & Gatti, which he now manages. These are duly credited as “ created by Hunter & Gatti,” presented alongside his personal practice and establishing a dialogue between history, transformation, and contemporary gaze. His work has been exhibited in cities such as Barcelona, New York, and Miami, and reflects a visual practice grounded in experience, exploration, and ongoing evolution. 

 In LIVE FOREVER, the all-new series of acrylic and oil pastel on pigment print, Hunter & Gatti engage with the discursive and artistic discoveries of two major pillars of contemporary art. We find Basquiat’s schematic but deeply striking iconography, together with a warholian study of the mechanical reproduction of an image, where each singular reproduction is made unique by its intervention in paint. The artists take special interest in Basquiat's strive for definitive self-assertion, which is paradoxically only achieved through a constant deconstruction and colorful exploration of the self—this duality, apparent also in the material condition of the work, is the guiding motif through Live Forever by Hunter & Gatti. Identity is not a fixed given, as much as it is a constantly re-interpreted and re-framed question. In some cases, one performs one's own identity—in others, one’s identity is defined by the on-looker, the mass audience or the portrait taker or artist, who can project onto the subject a labyrinth of given and made-up identities. When done with the respect and admiration the artists owe their subject as in this case, identity becomes a playful negotiation. Each unique piece of this series captures one successful moment of communication between the artist and their subject. A black and white portrait of larger-than-life pop-star and cultural guru Pharrell Williams is the common denominator, or base, which, through repetition and intervention, becomes a fluid work: never fully completed, but always in transition. The inquiring nature and inconclusiveness of the works is itself a metaphor for the complex concept of identity, which the artists are interested in questioning. We can see how the subject's identity can be mutated and toyed with, without this change diminishing the weight of his presence, undoubtedly central throughout the series.