Whitney V. Hunter is a Brooklyn-based performance and exhibition artist. He creates and curates work for the stage, gallery, and alternative spaces, and directs his Whitney Hunter[medium], a project-based performance collective. Whitney holds a BFA in Theatre Arts/Dance from Howard University, and an MFA in New Media Arts and Performance from Long Island University.
He has received a Puffin Foundation Grant (2011), Harlem Stages – Fund for New Work Grant (’09), a new work(s) commission from Thelma Hill Performing Arts Center (’08 & ’11), National Foundation for the Advancement In the Arts Astral Career Grant (’06), and a Career Transitions for Dancers Support Grant (‘03), and in 2007 he was featured as one of Trace Magazine’s “7 NYC Dancers on the Rise”.
Solo performance works include: An Execution, Pious Act #1, Black-eyed Proclamation, Light. Dark. Action., How to Make Hot water Cornbread, Libacion por Guillermina, Da Travla, and Harvey Cotenhead, IV.
Artist Statement
I am an artist who consistently questions the purpose and function of art. I have a genuine interest in hybrid forms and works that cross artistic boundaries. Working from a Shape (the rediscovery of perception) philosophy, I am engaged in creating live performance and mediated works for the stage, the gallery, and alternative environments that ignite the imagination through contemplation.
Integral to my creative process are techniques of object analysis, manipulation of time, and the deconstruction and re-composition of constructed form(s).
My African American heritage, African diasporic identity, and spiritual beliefs provide a context for my work, and facilitate my role as an artistic medium.
My solo performance works are ceremonial in nature and have an intention towards the construction of new traditions via ritualistic means. My body is the object, material, and site utilized to physically explore and experiment with socio-cultural issues.
I am truly a seeker and a wanderer in constant search of my primal identity, and my contemporary art practice is with the effort towards exploring the transformative potential of art.

Ryan Hawk is a multidisciplinary visual artist, utilizing performance with video, sculpture, and drawing. Hawk’s work has been shown in several venues throughout New York and was recently exhibited at Chicago's Rapid Pulse International Performance Art Festival. Also, Hawk will be a featured artist for Select Industries Art Fair 2012 during Art Basel Miami Beach. Ryan Hawk was born in Houston, TX in 1992 and currently lives and works in Boston, MA.

It seems that the reason one seeks an understanding of a hierarchical source stems from a moment of existential perplexity and through this observation my association with art and its context are configured. The space that I construct, define, or redefine often exists within a moment of phenomenological experience and by a utility of my own body, an engagement with the viewer manifests a relationship of mutual identification. These spatial moments are intended to commence an inner-awareness, which in hopes, results in mediation within a larger framework of values or beliefs.

Through the use of line, I am able to suggest preexisting and future application of form, which alludes to notions of inter-subjectivity, evokes complexities of spirituality, employs questions regarding the transference of unconscious materials, and draws on paradoxes within a self-concept.


Through my practice, I seek questions, not answers, to provide a space for transmutation, and to establish a platform for debate. I hope to align my viewers with deep and complex thoughts regarding the passing of time, its relation to space, and to continuously examine how one constructs an identity within their everyday experiences, challenges, and relationships. Destination is something that I aim to suggest, but how to get there is often what’s left.

GRACE EXHIBITION SPACE will be presenting International Performance Artists at both Select Art Fair and Fountain Art Fair in Miami, 2012

Grace Exhibition Space, since 2006, is devoted exclusively to Performance Art. We offer an opportunity to experience visceral and challenging performance works by the current generation of international performance artists, whether emerging, mid career or established.
Being a Brooklyn loft, our events are presented on the floor, not on a stage, dissolving the boundary between artist and viewer. This is how performance art is meant to be experienced and our mission is the glorification of performance art.

"On each night, and in each performance, the human body is redeemed from the mundane and made anew." David Lagaccia, Williamsburg Greenpoint News+Art (June, 2012)