The Real

Candace Hunter wowed the people with her ‘Cameo Collection’ on canvas at the return of the Dixon School’s Cultural Connections  last weekend which showcased Chicago’s crème de crème Black artists and others from across the country.  For Candace it has always been that way. Ask those that know her and  ask any artist, and they will tell you that she’s an artist’s artist. Clearly, she expresses herself creatively through her art always tackling something new and fresh, using different materials and sometimes actually switching up the genre and or discipline. Her work is not stagnant and continues to tell the stories of Black people. And perhaps most importantly,  you can count on her work reflecting excellence on all levels . . .  genre , discipline, materials, content, and intentionality. Because of that, she’s quite the darling in the art world today on our side. As the consummate artist, she has been  gaining popularity and notoriety receiving accolades from grants to shows many which are very prestigious.  Her work is without a doubt unapologetically African American Black aesthetically making bold political statements about humanity  and inhumane.

Candace says that she’s always done what she’s done as an artist for as long as she can remember. She shares the story about,  “My mother's walls. .  . She was paying someone to the paint the interior of our house for the first time. When they moved the piano away from the wall the question was asked, ‘Do you want me to cover this up to?’ I had created a whole catalogue of drawings on the wall behind the piano that mother had never seen and it was my secret place where draw to my heart's content.”

Candace goes on to say,  “But I've always been a creative, whether I was creating plays, writing stories, drawing, sketching, doodling, performing. I have always done something that was bigger than me, the little girl,  the teen, the young woman or now the slightly older woman that I've become. So it's who I am. It's not what I do. It's who I am. And that's nothing that I can change, nor would  I want to.

About her work Candace says, “I understand that the ideas that create the work that I do, are not mine.  My ideas come from someplace higher than me something much bigger than me. And that's where the ideas come from. As an artist, it is then my responsibility to either answer those ideas or not. I can step away from an idea. However, if I’m going to answer it, then I have to be equipped to answer it the best way I can. So, it's always important that I stay up on top of new materials, experimentation, taking classes, being in communion with other artists, having that kind of conversation, that feels the work that makes the work better. It is my responsibility to understand technique. It's my responsibility to literally work at this. It's not an easy life. It's both physically  exhausting and mentally challenging to do the work. I am grateful that the ideas are given to me very graciously. Therefore , I’ve have got to put them forward. I've got to do the work.

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Candace notes that it’s important to be familiar with the dynamics that were instrumental to her growth and development as the artist that she is. For her mother. Dr. Mae Hunter, an educator, the pursuit of academia was of the utmost importance. Primarily because she wanted Candace to be successful in being able to take care of herself.  Art did not fit her idea of being financially able. Candace  attended Catholic schools elementary through college and remains Catholic today. She tells the story of the ‘young gifted and Black’ young Pan Africanist  who usually wore her head wrapped and  draped herself in long  garments. She was pursuing a major in religious Education major and a visual arts minor.

That was a pivotal moment for Candace on several levels, obviously education is important, but the pursuit of education is personal. One’s interest will drive their pursuit. Candace, learned from the chair of the theatre department that she had not declared theatre as her major yet.  Surprised, she explained that theater was not her major. The chair said, “Well, you've done everything except for the directing course.”

She walked out into the world with art and theatre in front of her. She met Val Gray Ward of the Kuumba Theatre Company, where she was  hired as their artist-in-residence.  She designed their flyers, posters and backdrops for the stage sets.  Candace was doing all that when KUUMBA Administrators  queried her and asked, “So your degree was also in theater?  Can you teach?  So Candace taught  Kuumba’s beginning acting class and continued her other jobs.”

It was during that  time the theater brought in a New York, director Michael Whitaker. I’d observe him at the theater and we had ‘like minds.’  He was working with Hazel Bryant, and they were going to produce the National Black Theatre Festival in New York at the Lincoln Center. Val Ward brought him in to direct James Baldwin's the “ The Amen Corner.” And he and I had like minds. We’d often end up talking and laughing about the day. So, imagine  two weeks before the show was to open Michael says, “Candi ( a nickname she’s since retired) I  need you to open up the play in the role of Sister Boxer.” And I responded, Are you crazy?” He was serious.”  Understand   that James Baldwin's “The Amen Corner,” done full length is a three plus hour play. Sister Boxer is a major character so that were a lot of lines to learn. Long story short, Candace says, “I did it. Normally an actor rehearses 4 to 5 weeks, and the play runs 4 to five weeks  so 10 weeks is the life for a theatrical piece. So, for a lucky actor they do maybe three pays a year.”  

“Kuumba theater company played to sold out audiences in Chicago. We then they traveled  east  repeated the success in Springfield, Massachusetts to New York and performed at the Mitzi new house theater at the Lincoln Center as part of the Black Theatre Festival. After New York they traveled to Detroit Music Hall; performed in  St. Louis returned  to Chicago, where they  and they opened a brand new theater to reprise it in Chicago. “So, I literally did the play for three years and it became an award winning ensemble. It was an amazing run.” The play was documented in a book, “In the Shadow of the Great White Way: Images from the Black Theatre” by  and it captures a scene featuring Candace as Sister Boxer.

Candace had another 3 year theater run at the Organic Theater in Chicago where she played a dirty Vagabond in the play ER. “When Jackie Taylor, left to establish  Black Ensemble Theatre Company in Chicago, I replaced her as nurse Julie. So, there's seven years ’worth of performance without any real breaks.” Note that Candace notes that she was doing on camera commercial work. And at that time, “I was one of two of the two most working black actresses in Chicago. Diane Shaw, and I probably booked more jobs than anyone else and I'm not being prideful.” It was pretty phenomenal.  

At some point she moved to New York and then to LA in pursuit of the acting life. She returned home to not miss out on her nephew’s childhood.

Candace has worked two jobs in her lifetime like every day folk do. She held each for 18 months. One was with Jobs for Youth Chicago, where she started a mentorship program for young mothers at risk. And it was called the Optimum Mentorship Program. She worked at  Gallery 37 as  Career Development Officer. She helped kids enroll into schools for the arts. In each program, she did great work, and she remains in communication with some of the children whose life her efforts made a difference.

She has engaged her genius with may projects one in particular in association with  the Chicago Historical Society now the Chicago History Museum with Amina Dickerson who was the director of education, for her Sojourner program and brought in young women from those Black communities that no longer exists. For the program, Candace wrote, produced and directed, “Temika’s World,’ an award winning  film short that has been critically acclaimed  and is often requested for showing .

So fast forward. Back home in Chicago, Candace finds her groove and the art she produces takes on a life of its own. In the cradle of Chicago, she has done several large scale  exhibitions. “Dust in their Veins,” about women and water rights, which I produce by myself,” she says, but at one show, the Carol Adams then Executive Director of DuSable Museum attended and asked Candace to install, the exhibition in DuSable’s new building. From there it went  to the Murphy gallery at UC in Champaign Urbana,  and at The Field Museum. Candace says, “And then the most marvelous thing is that people asked me to talk about water. Consequently, “I have been a sought after speaker on women and moderators.”

Candace produced   a solo show called Hooded Truths at the Southside Community Art Center which was important to her. It was a response to stereotyped thinking about hoodie wearing  Black Youth who are under attack. And then the last large scale show I did, I did a show called “So Be it See to it.” I was returning home  from London with my daughter whom I had taken for her 16th birthday. I had partaken in a program at the Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee, it's an incredible hotel that has an artist in residence program.

Anyway, they present  a finalist show I wasn’t awarded the Finalist Award, but I received the  Popular Vote, Award. With the popular vote, I was gifted a space to do a solo show at the Intercontinental Hotel. Wow. So, forward. We're in London.

“I  was on the flight scrolling saw several articles that were about Octavia Butler” That’s when she discovers  Octavia’s personal mantra.  And thought, “Oh, okay, Octavia. Thank you.” So it was that moment on that flight from Detroit to Chicago, that I said, this solo show is going to be about Octavia Butler's work. And the title of the show is her mantra. “So be it, See, to it! And so, I started the work as soon as I got back to Chicago.

I had met, Amy Halladay who's a curator in Massachusetts who reached out to me and invited me to participate as part of a residency at Yale. I accepted and observed  her working with these brilliant young artists and technical people.  Their work  was akin to the work done with the recent Van Gough Exhibition except it was my work that they used as the foundation.

But the Pandemic inspired the idea to work on smaller canvases because as Candace saw it  ---it was it was space  smart.  She chose to work on 20 inch square canvases.  I wanted to capture the little girls; she had heard laughing in front of Cabrini Green.  I wanted that kind of whimsy and laughter and joy. And so, I started creating “My Brown Limbed Girls,” who were birthed to life. girls, and I would post them on Instagram and Facebook She received immediate wonderful responses. So, she continued to create them and sometimes she wrote short stories that went with them.

Next Candace forms a business relationship with the Stella Jones Gallery in New Orleans, one of the oldest Black woman galleries in the US. And she's been doing the good work and the good fight down there for a very long time.  It’s been a love affair ever sense and the Brown Limbed Girls are still being born and finding new homes as quickly as they are created.

Candace also has a series called “Black Men/White Shirts,  and they are fabulous  …

Finally,. . . Opening on November 13, 2023, will be the largest solo exhibition at the Hyde Park Art center of integrate    the works of Octavia Butler, “who, in my estimation is singularly the most powerful science fiction writer in the world,” says Candace,  “So I am looking at two of her series, the Parable of the Sower and Parable, the Talents, and the Zeno Genesis series. There’s so much to say and yet  the Real Real is to experience the art. Mark your calendars now and be there.

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