Denis Peterson
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Denis Peterson (born New York, 1944) is an American hyperrealist painter whose
photorealist Photorealism is a genre of art that encompasses painting, drawing and other graphic media, in which an artist studies a photograph and then attempts to reproduce the image as realistically as possible in another medium. Although the term ca ...
works have been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum,
Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...
, Butler Institute of American Art,
Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It ...
, Springville Museum of Art, Corcoran MPA, Museum of Modern Art CZ and Max Hutchinson Gallery in New York.


Life and work

Of
Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...
descent, Denis Peterson was one of the first Photorealists to emerge in New York shortly after being awarded a teaching fellowship at Pratt Institute where he attained his MFA in Painting. "The first Photorealists were Chuck Close, Don Eddy,
Richard Estes Richard Estes (born May 14, 1932 in Kewanee, Illinois) is an American artist, best known for his photorealist paintings. The paintings generally consist of reflective, clean, and inanimate city and geometric landscapes. He is regarded as one of ...
, Ralph Goings,
Robert Bechtle Robert Alan Bechtle (May 14, 1932 – September 24, 2020) was an American painter, printmaker, and educator. He lived nearly all his life in the San Francisco Bay Area and whose art was centered on scenes from everyday local life. His paintings ar ...
, Audrey Flack, Denis Peterson, and Malcolm Morley. Each began practicing some form of Photorealism around the same time, often utilizing different modes of application and techniques, and citing different inspirations for their work. However, for the most part they all worked independent from one another." He is widely acknowledged as the pioneer and primary architect of Hyperrealism,Thompson, Graham: ''American Culture in the 1980s'' (Twentieth Century American Culture) Edinburgh University Press, 2007 which was founded on the aesthetic principles of Photorealism. His work ''Dust to Dust'' is designated in art historical timelines as a hallmark painting bringing about the initial emergence of the Hyperrealism movement worldwide.Art: The Whole Story, 2010 Thames & Hudson Publishing Author Graham Thompson wrote, "One demonstration of the way photography became assimilated into the art world is the success of photorealist painting. It is also called super-realism or
hyper-realism Hyperrealism is a genre of painting and sculpture resembling a high-resolution photograph. Hyperrealism is considered an advancement of photorealism by the methods used to create the resulting paintings or sculptures. The term is primarily app ...
and painters like
Richard Estes Richard Estes (born May 14, 1932 in Kewanee, Illinois) is an American artist, best known for his photorealist paintings. The paintings generally consist of reflective, clean, and inanimate city and geometric landscapes. He is regarded as one of ...
, Denis Peterson, Audrey Flack and Chuck Close often worked from photographic stills to create paintings that appeared to be photographs." Denis Peterson distinguished hyperrealism from photorealism making meticulous changes to a work's depth of field, color, and composition in order to emphasize a socially conscious message about contemporary culture, consumerism and politics. Peterson has often utilized the hyperrealism painting style as a phenomenological vehicle for social change. In his work "Dust to Dust", Peterson asserts that a man of negligible social status who inhabits the lowest stratum of society is just as worthy of having his portrait painted as any titled individual or famous person, and, more importantly, just as deserving of having his humanity recognized. Figurative images in compressed space and incorporeal
landscapes A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the p ...
of social decadence are visual commentaries on the aftermath of
genocides Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Lati ...
, diasporas, and cultural divides. "Because of a combination of the theme of the work and his technical abilities, Peterson's paintings have a timeless symbolic meaning rather than the mere appearance of a photograph. While hyper-real in definition, they are also breaking from the structures of photography as being an acceptable simulation of reality and instead, creating a sense of loss from "personalization and interaction."Joshua Rose, "Beyond Perception", ''American Art Collector'' magazine, November 2008 pp. 154–158 "Originally, his floor-to-ceiling sized paintings centered around a single figure, with his monochromatic subjects characteristically cropped to appear as enlarged black and white photographs. Later, he developed a diverse number of original painting series, such as multiple phone booths in New York City. Although not a professional photographer, he has relied on his own camera shots to maintain a consistency of composition and subject matter as reliable reference studies. Several years ago, Denis utilized photorealism as a visual medium through which to portray the unthinkable: genocides. As with his controversial painting series on homelessness, his work centered on the indefatigable human spirit rather than on political and economic crucibles. More recently, he has been painting urbanscapes of gargantuan commercial billboards overlooking crowds of people scurrying about below, often unaware of what social messages loom above."


Painting subjects

These photorealistic works are visually compelling; often bearing witness to historical evidence of grotesque mistreatment of people by governments, societies, and systemic classism. His earlier work exposed
totalitarian Totalitarianism is a form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high if not complete degree of control and reg ...
regimes, raising political and moral questions with regard to third-world military governments. These hyper-real depictions were often seen as a legacy of hatred and intolerance. Visually disturbing subjects of this iconoclastic artist have been statuesque figures and stoic faces painted in an eerily and deafening
hyper-reality Jean Baudrillard ( , , ; 27 July 1929 – 6 March 2007) was a French sociologist, philosopher and poet with interest in cultural studies. He is best known for his analyses of media, contemporary culture, and technological communication, as wel ...
. His subjects are universally depicted with an internalized calm in the face of the surrounding horrors of deadly disease, impending torture, terrorizing fear, and irrational hatred. Commentary by Fergal Keane, Special Correspondent BBC
/ref> Thematically, Peterson's hyper-realist works are presented in series. Many of his provocative paintings have confronted the human condition. "This instance of hyperrealism is a performance art. Viewers are deliberately made to notice the amazing amount of time and painstaking effort that went into portraying this. Peterson isn't showing off; he is a radical painter, compelling us with his dedication. The astonishing realism is in the context of reflected light from every other object in the scene. Western artists such as David, da Vinci and Denis Peterson are important in part because of their skill and innovation, but also because they come from cultures that dominate the modern global power scene. Renaissance painters catered to emerging capitalism, the sons in David’s painting
Oath of the Horatii ''Oath of the Horatii'' (french: Le Serment des Horaces), is a large painting by the French artist Jacques-Louis David painted in 1784 and now on display in the Louvre in Paris. The painting immediately became a huge success with critics and the p ...
symbolize French colonies, and Peterson’s Darfur painting, “Don’t Shed No Tears” provokes America to intervene with her wealth."


Themes of work

His more recent photorealistic works encompass meticulously detailed New York cityscapes that focus on imposing ten-story-high billboards as POP icons overlooking busy city streets, pedestrians, and vehicles. "In Peterson's paintings, people are present but are typically caught under the weight and pressure of billboards and advertisements that loom heavily over the streets they inhabit. For Peterson, this is a commentary on contemporary society and its effects on people." "Somewhere during the process of painting Peterson imbued something of himself into the work, which is why his images for me succeed where his contemporaries do not. He doesn't just paint street scenes, but for me these are his most effective images. Devoid of any human presence, his locations are ripe for ghosts, the atmosphere heavy with unassuaged yearning." "His most recent work involves street scenes with people being 'weighed down' by advertising billboards, like the ones showing New York. Some of his earlier work looked at the suffering felt by people imposed by governments and societies raising moral and political questions about military regimes." "Denis Peterson’s hyperrealist paintings are visual statements peppered with underlying socio-economic paradigms. In viewing them, it becomes immediately apparent that techniques and methods are a product of his work, not the other way around. The illusion of reality as a transformational aesthetic is a virtual means to an end." "People exist, and interact with the world around them. The artist himself/herself exists in Metamodernism, and comments on his/her world. One caveat – the artist is removed from, and he knows about that separation as he/she observes himself/herself observing people and the ordered/disordered socio/economic/political spacetimes they inhabit. Denis Peterson exemplifies this... characteristic of Metamodernism/Popomo, and at the same time his work addresses a sense of loss, pain/angst concerning our position in a culture dominated by corporate America. People are viewed (once again) as individuals, though caught in the overwhelming commodification of everything, some so completely lost, that they are no longer individuals. The images themselves seem to go beyond, past, refer back to photo realism, and photography. I see a connection to Social Realism because it often put a face to its own dogma by showing individuals caught in the social/political/cultural juggernaut. Peterson’s work inhabits these concerns."Timotheus Vermeulen & Robin van den Akkera, ''Journal of Aesthetics & Culture'', Vol. 2, 2010


References


External links


Website

Mark Gallery NYC

Zhou Art Center Chicago

Salmagundi NYC

Thomas Paul Fine Art CA

Plus One Gallery UK

Persterer Contemporary Fine Art Zürich

Galerie Rive Gauche Paris

Galleria d'Arte Moderna Milan

Pierre Bergé & Associés Paris, Bruxelles

Museum of Modern Art CZ

Museo de Hyperrealisme CZ

Museum of Modern Art Barcelona
{{DEFAULTSORT:Peterson, Denis 1944 births 20th-century American painters American male painters 21st-century American painters 21st-century American male artists Artists from New York (state) Photorealist artists Living people American people of Armenian descent 20th-century American male artists