Peter Stephens

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.

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