'In the mid 1970s, Hunter made a number of photo series presenting images in a sequence. She later explained that the “narrative photographic sequences I made are actually storyboards of the films I couldn’t afford to make.” Her work as an artist was supported, in fact, by her work in a commercial animation studio, so storyboards and animation cells were part of her everyday vernacular. Toward the end of the 1980s, she started to combine photography with forms of painting and printmaking, including the use of Xerox machines: in cinematic terms, combining live action and animation. Turning to the language of advertising and women’s magazines, many of her photo series feature disembodied hands, inviting the viewer to place herself in the picture. These three series explore the relationship between gender, dirt and the machine. In the recalibration of gender roles in the post-war period, machine engineering was stereotypically masculine work, and the machine being fixed and maintained (whether it was a car, a motorbike or a piece of musical equipment) was afforded feminine attributes. By contrast, women were given the role of society’s cleaners. In these three series, Hunter explores what happens when a man’s hands lovingly probe an engine, what happens when a woman’s hands do the same, what happens when they get dirty, when they become capable and confident, when they start to take control, and the inescapable innuendo that arises.' - Hettie Judah