Genuine Imitation Naugahyde. Christopher Peterson, artist
Christopher Peterson says that like many artists—including such favorites of his as Edward Hopper and Andrew Wyeth—he often explores light in his paintings. “I tend to gravitate to subjects that are slightly urban and kind of retro or Americana and basically anything that captures an interesting or unusual lighting and color situation for me,” Peterson says.
This month, HUSH HOUR: The Paintings of Christopher Peterson at Mars Landing Arts Center in Mars Hill highlights the Asheville-based artist’s more recent and larger works. The exhibition runs through Sunday, April 26.
“Oftentimes, diners make for some really inviting scenes,” says Peterson, who was born in New York City and grew up in Westport, Connecticut. “If you can do a painting of a table setting with two chairs, that maybe suggests a relationship, with two people sitting across the table,” he says. “Or, for instance, there may be a row of diner stools on a counter that invites people.” And, with light being so at play in his works, he adds, “there’s a lot of shiny stuff in diners, too.”
Sunset District. Christopher Peterson, artist
“What makes my work unique is in the way I see things,” says Peterson, who often embarks on photo reconnaissance in urban settings. “I look for interesting lighting situations and opportunities to express perspective and invite the viewer into the scene. I feel that my job as an artist is to reflect the world that we all live in and can relate to.” Working with oil on canvas, he says he “straddles the wobbly line between fine and applied art.”
Peterson’s background as an illustrator includes having designed more than 150 posters for The Fillmore concert venue in San Francisco, as well as for musical artists such as Paul McCartney, James Taylor, Paul Simon, Eric Clapton, Willie Nelson, Phish, Peter Frampton, Bonnie Raitt and Van Morrison.
Of his illustration work, Peterson says he is “basically doing a painting. The technique is a little different in that I’m working in acrylic on watercolor paper for my illustration work. But beyond that, it’s just a painting.”
His work has been published in The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, the San Francisco Chronicle and The Art of Modern Rock by Paul Grushkin and Dennis King. His paintings are in private and corporate collections, including the US Air Force art collection, and he is represented by SHOH Arts gallery in Berkeley.
“Peterson’s work demands that the viewer notice the intensity of color, light and reflection that infuse the most seemingly mundane moments,” says Mars Landing Arts Center owner Miryam Rojas. “I was drawn, through Hush Hour, to drawing viewers into that ‘quiet intensity’ often overlooked within our otherwise everyday, rushed lives.”
Learn more at ChristopherPetersonFineArt.com and at Petersonland.com. Mars Landing Arts Center is at 37 Library Street in Mars Hill. Learn more at MarsLandingArtsCenter.com.
