oil
Nowhere is Peter’s prolific output more evident than in his works in oil. Stretching to over 250 works on canvas and hardboard, the works flow with a sense of a painter entirely comfortable in the medium, prepared to take risks and follow his brush to reach further in terms of depth and expression. Preferring simple wooden framing to any sense of ostentation, his oils are our richest treasure trove and most revealing resource of Peter’s works.
Enamel
Pan, Helios, Helen of Troy, the Janus Head, the crusaders and St Peter himself, from the large iconic works, to the smaller talismanic pieces, Peter’s enamels are as striking as anything he produced. Extremely rare in terms of scale, vibrancy and feel, the religious, totemic, and symbolic elements of Peter’s language beam out, tying their precious minerals to simple, earthy representative images of the saints and more. As an enameller Peter magnified the ‘saintly’ aspect of the creative act to shine like a jewel itself.
line & wash
Often forming at the intersectional area of process, Peter’s line and wash works gave him a place to experiment with colour, composition and form. In melancholy blues, purples and mauve, their results can often be seen seeping into the other mediums Peter used, while showing a heightened appreciation for the more fragile and sensitive aspects of the painter’s subject matter.
pen & sketch
Peter’s disciplined approach to art making meant that he almost never spoke of his finished works. His drawings, however, speak of an attitude that was as rigorous in terms of approach as it could also be playful. At times humorous, these detailed, rich characterisations lift multitudinous figures from street or home, via a virtuosic use of pen and ink. In these small works of a grand scale Peter manages to venerate the everyday as capable of being saintly and expressive. Others show a deep belief in classical training, such as the 12 Stations of the Cross sketchbook-drawing exercises, which he practiced throughout his career.
watercolour
In watercolour Peter was able to experiment with a rapidity of expression that again left us a vast amount of dazzling works. It is here that his most active symbols and tropes could initially articulate themselves and be reworked. The result is often an overflowing and dramatically fecund view of nature, community and the world of dream, from which his more primal and romantic leanings could leap to the fore and speak.
Acrylic
Peter’s works in acrylic show an artist who believes in the joyfulness of creation. In many of these he uses sharp, experimental contrasts of colour and tone to represent light as an active force, a dynamism he clearly enjoyed. These works show an understanding of texture and surface undoubtedly related to his multidisciplinary approach. The result is a set of works in which, among other things, the Suffolk countryside is emboldened and alive, even when abstracted through the presence of brush fibre and stroke.
calligraphy
Engaging with the written word, Peter took great pleasure in portraying short, declarative segments of poetry and scrip, whether in prints, furniture embellishments or works on paper. Here he made his love of literature, so integral to all of his works, materially clear through his careful hand. The statements, often manifesto-like in their message, provide us with a personal, typographic representation of what he believed art should be.
woodcut
The intricacy of Peter’s craft skills here allow for a greater sense of permanence in the expression of his vision. Their pattern and design elements echo his background as a print maker. The heaviness of contrasts lift the figures he represents up into the sky, capturing their essence, photographing that fluidity present in other forms as moments carved into time. We are given here a solidifying of his language that thankfully reproduces as startlingly today as it did when the works were first carved.
etching
Allowing for a heightened sense of formalisation and a delineated articulation of his approach, this craft based technique shows a level of precision and intricacy that a highly capable and ambitious artist like Peter could achieve. His sweeping strokes add air to a forthright vision, in which the domestic or the gardener’s world prove wholly compatible with that of the symbolic when they meet the artist’s hand by way of craft.
