On view October 4 – November 15 , 2016
Art reception on October 14 Friday 6 – 8:30 pm
EBK Gallery [small works].
218 Pearl St.
Hartford, CT
Paintings 1995-1996/ “it’s like déjà vu all over again”
The 19 paintings in this exhibition were part of a series of 35 that were first shown at the Edward Thorp Gallery, NYC in 1996.
For this series I sought out locations that required special permission to visit and document: “super max” prisons; execution chambers; court rooms; casinos; hospital operating theaters and corporate board rooms. All of these places represented a kind of mid-1990’s “growth industry” and for each location a certain amount of red tape was involved in order to gain access. Because of the volume of images, I decided to work on a smaller scale than before. Single aluminum panels were fabricated for each image. Simply bent at the top and bottom, each hovers off the wall, the aluminum surface is hard and cold while the back side is grey and metallic.
The paired images of “Electric Chair” and “Jury Box” (the latter painting is not in the show) represent the often ironic connections which I look for. Both share decidedly centered vantage points, be it looking “in to” or “out from”, and the single wooden and leather electric chair and the similar twelve juror’s chairs appear to have been made by the same hand.
I want to thank Eric Ben-Kiki for the opportunity to show some of the series again, it seems the “growth industries” that I depicted twenty years ago still remain in place…as Yogi said: “it’s like déjà vu all over again”. -P.W.
click on an image to enlarge or forward through
The two images shown are available as a signed fine art print.
The stacked diptych is 22 x 30 inches overall (paper size) with each image at 6 1/2 x 17 inches.
Also available in any of the images: Actual size (to the original painting 20 x 50 inches) low tack full color “sticky back” print of each which can be placed anywhere on a wall.
The paired images of “Electric Chair” and “Jury Box” (the latter painting is not in the show) represent the often ironic connections which I look for. Both share decidedly centered vantage points, be it looking “in to” or “out from”, and the single wooden and leather electric chair and the similar twelve juror’s chairs appear to have been made by the same hand.
Recent Press
Article in WideWalls online publication by Amy Lin (Click Here)
Visit Peter Waite’s web site (Click here)
For over 25 years I have made large scale paintings that document my travels — real visits to real places — to sites of the built environment that embody public sentiment or ideological concerns. Stadiums, formal gardens, bridges, museums, monuments, palaces, train stations, schools, prisons, casinos, corporate board rooms, suburban and urban housing, and ancient temples, are some of the locations that I have depicted. My interest lies in the intersection of personal and social memory. I have intentionally omitted the figure from the representation to emphasize the viewer’s participation as witness to the moment of perceiving, then remembering, these architectural spaces. In my studio, I work in acrylic on rigid panels and use an equal combination of photographs, memory, and sketches done on location, to complete the painting. Typically, the scale of my paintings is large and can range from 4 feet x 6 feet to 8 feet x 12 feet.
Travel, far and near, being there, has always been crucial to my work as a painter. I often target specific cities: Paris, Vienna, Rome, London, and most recently Liverpool and Leeds in the UK. Closer to home, I have been to Cincinnati and Chicago to develop a series of paintings about these cities, covering not only the well known or iconic, but also the more mundane or universal setting, like a subway station or stairwell. My goal has always been to make the known, unknown and the ordinary, extraordinary.
CV / Resume
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2016 Winston Wachter Fine Art/New York NY
2015 Carl Solway Gallery/Cincinnati OH
2013 Winston Wachter Fine Art/New York NY
Winston Wachter Fine Art/Seattle WA
2011 Winston Wachter Fine Art/Seattle WA
2010 Winston Wachter Fine Art/New York NY
John Slade Ely House/New Haven CT
2009 University of Connecticut/
Contemporary Art Galleries/Storrs CT
2008 Winston Wachter Fine Art/Seattle WA
2007 Edward Thorp Gallery/New York NY
New Britain Museum of American Art/New Britain CT
2006 Winston Wachter Fine Art/Seattle WA
2005 Edward Thorp Gallery/New York NY
2003 Real Art Ways/Hartford CT
2002 Edward Thorp Gallery/New York NY
2001 Edward Thorp Gallery/New York NY
1999 RAW Gallery, Real Arts Ways/Hartford CT
1998 Zilkha Art Gallery, Wesleyan University/Middletown CT
1997 Winston Wachter Fine Art/New York NY
1996 Edward Thorp Gallery/New York NY
Gahlberg Gallery, College of DuPage/Glen Ellyn IL catalog
1995 Williams College Museum of Art/Williamstown MA catalog
1994 Edward Thorp Gallery/New York NY
Carl Solway Gallery/Cincinnati OH catalog
1993 ZONE Art Center/Springfield MA
1992 Damon Brandt Gallery/New York NY
1991 University of Missouri-Kansas City Gallery of Art/
Kansas City MO catalog
1990 Damon Brandt Gallery/New York NY
1988 Damon Brandt Gallery/New York NY
1987 Atrium Gallery, University of Connecticut/Storrs CT
1982 Artists Space/New York NY
Real Art Ways/Hartford CT
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2008 Connecticut Biennial 2008 Mattatuck Museum/Waterbury CT
2007 Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art/Hartford CT
“CT Contemporary”
2005 Edward Thorp Gallery/New York NY
2003 Edward Thorp Gallery/New York NY
The Aldrich Museum/Ridgefield CT “A River Half Empty”
New Britain Museum of American Art/New Britain CT
“LeWitt’s LeWitts: From the Collection of Carol & Sol LeWitt”
2002 Edward Thorp Gallery/New York NY
2001 Gallery 2211/Los Angeles CA
1999 George Adams Gallery/New York NY “Mumia 911”
1199 Gallery/New York NY “Mumia 911”
1998 Orlando Museum of Art/Orlanda FL
The Edward R. Broida Collection
Edward Thorp Gallery/New York NY
DFN Gallery/New York NY “Surfing the Surface”
1997 Edward Thorp Gallery/New York NY
Real Art Ways/Hartford CT “Heaven and Hell”
1996 Edward Thorp Gallery/New York NY
1995 The Aldrich Museum/Ridgefield CT “Drawn on the Museum”
Edward Thorp Gallery/New York NY
1994 Carl Solway Gallery/Cincinnati OH “Desire and Loss”
Edward Thorp Gallery/New York NY
1992 BlumHelman/New York NY
John Stoller Gallery/Minneapolis MN
Wadsworth Atheneum/Hartford CT “The Colt Four”
BlumHelman Warehouse/New York NY
Tomoko Liguori Gallery/New York NY
David Beitzel Gallery/New York NY Projects Room
“The Highgate Series” catalog
1991 DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park/Lincoln MA
9 Artists/9 Visions” catalog
1990 Real Art Ways/Hartford CT “15 Years of RAW”
1989 Wilson Arts Center, The Harley School/Rochester NY
“Past Tense”
Wadsworth Atheneum/Hartford CT “Recent Acquisitions”
1988 Sherry French Gallery/New York NY
The Wichita Art Museum/Wichita KS
The National Academy of Science/Washington DC
“Charged: Places and Things”
1986 Joseloff Gallery, Hartford Art School/West Hartford CT
“Invitational Alumni Exhibition”
ZONE Art Center/Springfield MA
“John Constable Landscape Series”
1983 Real Arts Ways/Hartford CT “Space Invaders”
1982 Alternative Museum/New York NY “Visual Politics”
Sutton Gallery/New York NY
1981 Wadsworth Atheneum/Hartford CT
“Artworks at the Atheneum”
1980 Mid-Way Gallery, University of Chicago/Chicago IL
“Mid-Way between Comedy and Art”
1979 N.A.M.E. Gallery/Chicago IL “Daley’s Tomb”
ARC Gallery/Chicago IL
1977 New Britain Museum of American Art/New Britain CT
“Apperceptions”
SELECTED PUBLIC & PRIVATE COLLECTIONS
The New Britain Museum of American Art/New Britain CT
The Baron Collection/West Hartford CT
Edward Albert Collection/Chappaqua NY
The Cartin Collection/Hartford CT
Benton Museum/Storrs CT
The Edward R. Broida Collection
Williams College Museum of Art/Williamstown MA
Metropolitan Museum of Art/New York NY
Wadsworth Atheneum/Hartford CT
NASA/Washington DC
New School/New York NY
Palm Springs Desert Museum/Palm Springs CA
SELECTED COMMISSIONS
Laurel Hall, University of Connecticut/Storrs CT
(Art in Public Spaces, Connecticut Commission on the Arts)
Pacific Enterprises/Los Angeles CA
NASA Art Program
Sheraton Hotel/Hartford CT
Waterbury Criminal Court/Waterbury CT
(Art in Public Spaces, Connecticut Commission on the Arts)
GRANTS & FELLOWSHIPS
2006 Gottlieb Foundation
2003 Berkshire Taconic Artist Resource Trust
1995 Guggenheim Fellowship
Connecticut Commission on the Arts
1994 Pollock-Krasner Foundation
1983 National Endowment for the Arts
1979 Connecticut Commission on the Arts
1977 Connecticut Commission on the Arts
1975 Ryerson Fellowship, School of the Art Institute of Chicago