Iridescent bunnies tower over flowerbeds, glittery butterflies sparkle in a fountain, and colorful birds pop out of the ground as Hunt Slonem’s works transform the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden into an open-air art gallery. Hunt Slonem: Bunnies, Birds & Butterflies showcases Slonem’s works throughout the garden and is on view through Sept. 30.
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Visitors can see butterflies sparking in a fountain during Dallas Arboretum’s Twilight Nights throughout this summer.
Slonem is an internationally renowned neo-expressionist artist known for depicting the natural world through repetitive patterns and simple lines in both his paintings and large-scale installations. Mirrored surfaces and vibrant colors surprise and engage visitors as they stumble upon the installations in every corner of the garden. This exhibition features 37 installations and over 100 works in the garden as well as a gallery of works in the Historic Camp House.
Nature has been Slonem’s life-long muse. He was born in 1951 in Kittery, Maine, but thanks to his father’s career as a Navy officer, Slonem grew up in several places, including Hawaii, California, and Connecticut. Studying abroad in Mexico and Nicaragua deepened his appreciation for tropical landscapes and the creatures that inhabit it.
He honed his craft in his New York studio, home to his collection of exotic pet birds. His first solo exhibition was at the Fischbach Gallery in 1977, and his works are now in the permanent collections of 250 museums around the world, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Whitney, the Miro Foundation and the New Orleans Museum of Art. His works capture the joy, the exotic and the spiritual quintessence of the natural world.
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Slonem’s works appear in every corner of the Dallas Arboretum.
Slonem talks about incorporating his works into a garden setting, his favorite birds and reconnecting with nature as he painted while visiting the Dallas Arboretum.
NBC DFW: The Dallas Arboretum — all 66 acres of it – is your canvas. What opportunities does a garden as a canvas give you to express yourself artistically?
Hunt Slonem (HS): The garden allows me to incorporate the plants and flowers I love directly into the work — they become part of the sculpture itself. It’s a phenomenal setting, and it gives people the chance to walk through the art, around it, and within it. That adds so many dimensions to exhibiting work that a traditional gallery simply cannot offer. It’s a way of experiencing art that I personally find thrilling.
Kimberly RichardKimberly Richard
Slonem has had a collection of exotic bird for decades.
NBC DFW: You love exotic birds. What is your favorite bird to live with? And what is your favorite bird to feature in your works?
HS: I love living with parrots and toucans, among many others — I’ve kept up to a hundred species over the course of my life. Parrots live the longest, sometimes longer than a cat, which makes them extraordinary companions. It’s a remarkable, lifelong relationship. Toucans don’t live as long, but they are among the most exotic and visually stunning creatures I know. There are millions of species of toucans, and I’ve lived with perhaps five or six different ones — the Toucan, the Keel-billed, the Aracari — all of which appear throughout my work.
Kimberly RichardKimberly Richard
The Dallas Arboretum provides maps of where Slonem’s works are located in the garden.
NBC DFW: What is your connection to birds and butterflies?
HS: Growing up in the rather drab world most of us are raised in, birds and butterflies struck me as messengers from somewhere more exotic, more alive. They carry a vital energy that ordinary life simply doesn’t offer. To me, they represent other realms — more vivid, more luminous ones — and painting them is my way of bringing that energy into the world.
NBC DFW: Children love the Dallas Arboretum. What impression do you hope your work makes on them?
HS: I hope children feel welcomed by the art — not intimidated by it. Art can feel distant or unapproachable, and I want to dissolve that barrier entirely. My hope is that kids, and really every visitor, feel at ease with the work, connect with it, and leave with their experience of the garden made a little more joyful and a little more memorable.
Kimberly RichardKimberly Richard
Slonem painted in the garden during a visit to the Dallas Arboretum.
NBC DFW: You painted throughout the Dallas Arboretum. How does seeing your works in nature further inspire you?
HS: I almost exclusively paint in my studio, so working outdoors brought me back to earlier periods of my life when I painted en plein air. There’s a freshness to it, a new way of seeing the world that the studio, for all its comforts, can close you off from. Being out in nature with the work reawakens something essential in the process.
Learn more: Dallas Arboretum