Peter Demos

My recent work manifests itself through various modes of production and analysis. My work’s inspiration and, I believe, its strength lies in my address of painting’s fertile and extensive history as well as its current, shifting position within contemporary culture. Whether it is the use of traditional painting mediums, digital technologies, or other techniques, I am in search for modes of image- and object making that question the meaning, process, and definition of contemporary abstraction.
 

Black – the notorious ‘non-color’- has always been a source of fascination for artists.  The 19^th century saw Goya and Redon build entire series of work around it and in the past century Rauschenberg, Stella, Reinhardt, Noland and a host of others delved deeply into the properties of black.  Peter Demos is a young New York-based artist who has picked up the baton with his elegant, precise and extremely subtle compositions. His reductive canvases follow a Minimalist tradition while exploring optical effects that have their origin in the color theories of the 1960s.

Demos received his BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and an MFA from Hunter College.  He is a 2009 recipient of the Tony Smith Award and a Studio Residency at the Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation in Brooklyn.

Current Residence:

Brooklyn, NY


Education:

2008           Master of Fine Art, The City University of New York, Hunter College
2004           BFA (Painting), Kansas City Art Institute


Residencies:

2004           Urban Culture Project Studio Program, Kansas City, MO


Group Exhibitions:

2015  Op Infinitum: “The Responsive Eye” Fifty Years After, Part I, Part II, American Op Art in the 60’s, David Richard Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

2009           The Open, Deitch Studios, Long Island City, NY
                   Alternative Abstraction, Nina Freudenhiem Gallery, Buffalo, NY
2008           Hunter MFA Thesis Exhibition, Times Square Gallery at Hunter,
                              New York, NY
                   Come on Shake it Check it, Massimo Audiello Gallery New York, NY
2007           Dialogues, Times Square Gallery at Hunter, New York, NY
2006           Gimmicks, Paragraph, Kansas City, MO
                   ((((((O)))))), Paragraph Project Space, Kansas City, MO
2005           Impulse Art Fair, Miami, FL
                   The Affordable Art Fair, New York, NY
                   Nova, New Art Fair, Chicago, IL
                   On Site and In Progress, The Bank Gallery at UCP, Kansas City, MO
                   Y-Topia, Byron Cohen Gallery, Kansas City, MO
                   Corporate Partnership Exhibition Program, Kansas City, MO
                   4 Pop, Gunnison Art Center, Gunnison, CO
2004           Ungood, Shaw Hofstra Associates, Kansas City, MO
                   The Stray Show, 1418 N. Kingsbury, Chicago, IL
                   KCAI Annual BFA Show, H and R Block Art Space, Kansas City, MO
                   Hover Craft, Beth Alison Gallery, Kansas City, MO
                   Kansas City Flat Files, H and R Block Art Space, Kansas City, MO
2003           The Digital Show, KCAI Painting Gallery, Kansas City, MO
                   The Untitled Show, The Apex Gallery, Kansas City, MO
2002           1+1=1, The Hobbs Building, Kansas City, MO
                   Deconstruction, Leedy-Voulkos Art Center, Kansas City, MO

Peter Demos continued

Lectures:

2005           Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art Slide Lecture Series,
                              Kansas City, MO


Publications:

2005           "New American Paintings" No. 59 Open Studios Press, Illus and Bio