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Barb Hunt is a multidisciplinary textile artist based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Her art has contrasted knitting as a warming, protective art, against the violence of war. Through her tactile work, Hunt explores domesticity, mourning rituals, the natural world, and the colour pink.

A feminist and craftivist, Hunt uses materials, processes, and colours traditionally associated with femininity to bring new context and care to objects of war and adds legitimacy to tasks associated with "women's work". {{cite web |last1=Perron |first1=Mireille |title=The Art of Camouflage |url=http://www.stride.ab.ca/arc/archive_2007/hunt_maloney_cheney_main

Career
Hunt received her a Diploma in Art from the University of Manitoba School of Art in Winnipeg in 1982 and her MFA at Concordia University in Montréal, Québec in 1994. Since then, Hunt has taught at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario and at the Grenfell Campus of Memorial University of Newfoundland in Corner Brook.

In a 2013 talk given for the Wendy Wersch Memorial Lecture Series in Winnipeg, entitled We are all of us made by war, Hunt described how as descendants of English/Irish/Scottish settlers, Hunt's grandmothers taught her some of the textile skills expected of women.

Hunt has received several awards including the VANL-CARFAC Endurance Award, The President's Award for Outstanding Research from Memorial University of Newfoundland, and the Canada Council York Wilson Purchase Award.

Hunt's work has shown in major solo and group exhibitions internationally. She has also had residencies in Canada, Paris and Ireland.

Artwork Series
In the group exhibition, Museopathy, in London, Ontario in 2001 (curated by DisplayCult), Hunt explored feminisations of war weaponry. A solo show of her Antipersonnel series followed at the Art Gallery of Ontario in 2001. This series comprises dozens of pink knitted landmines, creating a contrast between materials and the destructive subject matter, while also referencing the connections of women knitting for soldiers overseas. As Hunt describes “I use these associations to contradict the abuse of power and the use of violence by transforming a destructive object into one that can do no harm.” [cite craft hard, die free, for some details about the landmines and # of mine designs she replicated]

In Toll, her 2011 solo show at The Rooms in St. John's, Newfoundland, Hunt used camouflage fabric to consider the human costs of armed conflict balanced by a deep empathy for soldiers, in areas of hostility. [cite 'the elsewhere war' for camouflage series]

Hunt's Mourning series expressed relationships between death, mourning, gender, and recuperation using labour-intensive craft to cope with grief and loss, as well as with protection and healing.

In her Steel Dresses series, Hunt made metal dresses from sheets of cold-rolled steel. Using a plasma-arc cutter, she created delicate forms resembling textile patterns, images from nature, and forms traditionally associated with women. She considers the making of these steel dresses as “sewing with fire”.

Currently, Hunt is working on two new series: Enthrall - In Thrall has feminist quotes embroidered on vintage hostess aprons; and Mirage shows thousands of vintage buttons sewn into abstracted nature forms such as leaves and rain.[cite]

Permanent collections
[add citations to these!] Hunt's art is in many major public collections across Canada, including:


 * Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Canada Council York Wilson Purchase Award, Kingston, ON Canada
 * Canada Council Art Bank, Ottawa, ON
 * Central Museum of Textiles, Lodz, Poland
 * Fondazione Benetton, Italy
 * The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery, St. John’s, NL
 * Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, ON
 * Winnipeg Art Gallery.