On any given day in downtown St. Augustine, Obediah “Obie” Hunter may be found beside an easel, working quickly as the light shifts across a historic façade, a tucked-away courtyard or the familiar bustle of a street corner. Visitors pause. Locals stop to say hello. Some return after seeing him paint the same view dozens of times, finally deciding they want one of their own.
For Hunter, those moments are part of the work.
Plein air painting, he says, preserves far more than a scene. “It’s a day of your life,” he explains. “You engrain those memories: the smells, the people you meet, and you link that up to the painting.”
That approach has made Hunter a fixture downtown, something like St. Augustine’s unofficial resident plein air artist. His canvases often capture the city’s recognizable architecture, but they are not rigid renderings. Some paintings lean architectural; others are looser, more expressive, with bold color and an abstract sensibility. The direction, he says, depends partly on his mood.
“I think people call it impressionism, but it has nothing to do with impressionism,” Hunter says of the more expressive work. “It’s actually more kind of abstract expressionism.”
Hunter’s path to St. Augustine included art school in Connecticut at Old Lyme Academy and further study at Tulane University in New Orleans, where his grandfather was a professor. In the French Quarter, he began painting outdoors on the street, developing the practice that would shape his life and work. He later spent years traveling, painting and teaching, including plein air workshops in southern France and Sonoma, California.
St. Augustine felt like a natural fit. Its old-world character recalls the European places where he spent time, but its appeal is also practical and visual. “A lot of it, believe it or not, is the light,” he says, invoking the French word *lumière*.
The changing light is among plein air painting’s central challenges. A shadow moves. The sun drops behind a building. A scene that looked one way at the beginning of a session can be entirely different an hour later. Hunter embraces that urgency, painting outdoors rather than retreating to a traditional studio.
“This is my studio,” he says.
There is also a quieter reason he works this way. Hunter describes painting as personal time, a way to step outside distractions and settle into the present. “Painting is very spiritual,” he says. “It’s almost as close as you can get to a church, where you’re out there.” Each brushstroke requires a decision, he adds, and that process asks the artist to trust himself. “Having the confidence to just be yourself completely.”
Over the years, Hunter has photographed and cataloged hundreds of his St. Augustine paintings, creating a substantial visual record of the city through his own eyes. He is considering ways to share that archive through prints, books and teaching projects, allowing him to devote more time to painting and helping other artists find their footing.
Still, the street remains central. Hunter likes the direct exchange of showing work where it is made, bringing fine art to people who might never enter a gallery. A visitor can leave with a scene they recognize; a longtime resident can carry home a corner of the city that has quietly become part of their daily life.
For Hunter, each canvas holds that connection: a place, a passing conversation, and the particular light of one St. Augustine day.
