Peter Stephens

ARTWORK EXHIBITS NEWS/PRESS PUBLICATIONS CV/BIO

Statement:

Stephens is an artist based in Buffalo, New York. He studied at the Rochester Institute of Technology, University of Siena, Siena, Italy and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has been featured in solo shows at Nina Freudenheim Gallery (Buffalo), TUB Gallery (Miami), Zolla/Lieberman Gallery (Chicago), R. B. Stevenson Gallery (San Diego), Fenimore Art Museum (Cooperstown, N.Y.), Drabinsky & Friedlan Gallery (Toronto), and Bess Cutler Gallery (Los Angeles), among other venues. Stephens’s work is in several museum collections, including the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the Burchfield-Penney Art Center, and the Castellani Art Museum in Western New York, as well as the Brooklyn Museum.

Initially, Stephens work “focused on 19th century landscape painting and its dialogue with photography as a new medium.” He also “worked with imagery from pictorial photographers and the proto-modernist work of Eugene Atget to look at the way nostalgia and romanticism is codified through an overlay of historical and cultural distance.” Feeling he had fulfilled his exploration in that realm he wanted to move into abstraction yet, wanting to maintain a conceptual connection to the landscape.

Stephens began reading about space science and physical phenomenon of the natural world such that his paintings and imagery would flow from his underlying knowledge and understanding of each scientific discipline. The first new series of paintings were his “Moon” paintings from 2007 to 2008 inspired by studying the Apollo astronaut mission logs and related digitized NASA images. The largest of the resulting lunar surface paintings is in the permanent collection of the Albright-Knox Art Museum. He then turned to researching the satellite images from Mars. The images were not as clear and distinct as the Apollo images and thus pushed his practice and his new “Areopagitica" series toward more abstract imagery. A painting from this series was also acquired by the Albright-Knox Art Museum and the entire collection was presented together in 2018 at the Burchfield-Penney Art Center. Further reading in physics and the structure and behavior of matter pushed his paintings further from the natural world and photographic sources towards pure non-objective abstraction. Additional scientific reading in the biological arena generated a new fascination with “random mutations” and the perturbations they generate and perpetuate in the evolution of forms, resulting in alterations in patterns and structure. Hence, where the new series of geometric paintings begin that are presented in this debut exhibition.

Résumé:

Buffalo, New York 1958

1976 - 1978 Rochester Institute of Technology

1978 University of Siena, Siena, Italy

1979 - 1981 The School of the Art Institute of Chicago BFA

SOLO

2019 1120 Projects, Buffalo, New York

Nina Freudenheim Gallery, Buffalo, New York

2018 Nina Freudenheim Gallery, Buffalo, New York

Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, Chicago, Illinois

William Campbell Contemporary Art, Fort Worth, Texas

2017 Sotheby's HOM, Newport Beach, California

Octagon Gallery, Patterson Library, Westfield, New York

2016 Nina Freudenheim Gallery, Buffalo, New York

2014 TUB Gallery, Miami, Florida

Nina Freudenheim Gallery, Buffalo, New York

2012 Nina Freudenheim Gallery, Buffalo, New York

2011 Nina Freudenheim Gallery, Buffalo, New York

2010 Allyn Gallup Contemporary Art, Sarasota, Florida

2009 Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, Chicago, Illinois

Nina Freudenheim Gallery, Buffalo, New York

2007 Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, Chicago, Illinois

Nina Freudenheim Gallery, Buffalo, New York

2006 Nina Freudenheim Gallery, Buffalo, New York

2005 R. B. Stevenson Gallery, San Diego, California

2004 Nina Freudenheim Gallery, Buffalo, New York

2003 Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, Chicago, Illinois

R. B. Stevenson Gallery, San Diego, California

2002 Nina Freudenheim Gallery, Buffalo, New York

2001 R. B. Stevenson Gallery, San Diego, California

2000 Nina Freudenheim Gallery, Buffalo, New York

1999 R. B. Stevenson Gallery, San Diego, California

1998 R. B. Stevenson Gallery, San Diego, California

Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, New York

Nina Freudenheim Gallery, Buffalo, New York

1997 Drabinsky & Friedland Gallery, Toronto, Canada

1996 Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo, New York

1995 Drabinsky &Friedland Gallery, Toronto, Canada

Nina Freudenheim Gallery, Buffalo, New York

Marianne Friedland Gallery, Naples, Florida

1994 Nina Freudenheim Gallery, Buffalo, New York

Marianne Friedland Gallery, Toronto, Canada

1992 Bess Cutler Gallery, Los Angeles, California

Nina Freudenheim Gallery, Buffalo, New York

1991 Bess Cutler Gallery, New York, New York

1990 Bess Cutler Gallery, New York, New York?

1989 Member's Gallery, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York

1988 Hallwalls, Buffalo, New York

1986 Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo, New York

GROUP Selected

2018 Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo, New York, At This Time

2016 R. B. Stevenson Gallery, San Diego, California, Californians

2015 Hallwalls, Buffalo, New York, Amid/In WNY

2013 Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, New York, American Masters

2011 Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, Surveyor

2010 R. B. Stevenson Gallery, San Diego, California, Just Enough

Nina Freudenheim Gallery, Buffalo, New York, Silviculture

2004 Zolla/ Lieberman Gallery, Chicago, Illinois, There There

2001 Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, New Acquisitions

R. B. Stevenson Gallery, San Diego, California, Mass Appeal

2000 Willian D. Cannon Art Gallery, Carlsbad, California, Landscape Not Forgotton

1999 Arnot Art Gallery, Elmira, New York, Re-Presenting Representation IV

1997 Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, In Western New York 1997

1995 Hallwalls, Buffalo, New York, 25th Anniversary

O'Hara Gallery, New York, New York, The Small Painting

Nina Freudenheim Gallery, Buffalo, New York, Steve Keister, James Nelson,

Scott Richter, Sean Scherer, Peter Stephens

1994 Marianne Friedland Gallery, Toronto, Canada, New Directions

1991 Nina Freudenheim Gallery, Buffalo, New York, Landscape-Seven Views

1990 Bess Cutler Gallery, New York, New York, Critical Revisions

Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, 43rd Western New York Exhibition

1989 Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, Transformations in Landscape

Michael Walls Gallery, New York, New York, Invited Artists

1988 Jayne Baum Gallery, New York, New York, Reconciling Modes: Painting Between Poesis and Logic

Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, 42nd Western New York Exhibition,

Citibank Award

1987 Hallwalls, Buffalo, New York

Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, The Wayward Muse: A Historical Survey of Painting in Buffalo

1986 Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, New York State Artists Series

1985 Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, In Western New York 1985

1984 Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, 40th Western New York Exhibition,

Graphic Controls Corporation Award

MUSEUM COLLECTIONS

Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, New York

Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York

Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo, New York

Castellani Art Museum, Niagara Falls, New York

Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, New York