Today we’d like to introduce you to Peter Arvidson.
Peter, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
Hmmm…okay, well I suppose I always had an interest in drawing growing up and my brother painted. I took a few classes in college for fun electives and ended up having a couple of great teachers which sparked an interest that was incubating. Still, I resisted a serious pursuit of my own work for years while at the same time visiting galleries in NYC while working as an ill-fated law clerk. I actually dropped out of two graduate programs (Criminal Justice and Architecture) before the pervasive bug of making art finally overrode everything else, including practical plans to make a living, and I said “screw it” and committed to the painting life. I got an MFA degree from the University at Buffalo and moved to Boston in the late 90’s.
Having grown up on Long Island, Boston seemed like a good fit for me while still being close enough to my roots and family in New York. So, I found jobs and apartments, made friends and started painting, painting and painting. It was great times! And then I got a bit lucky and soon hooked up with the Rice Polak Gallery in Provincetown and they started placing paintings in collections around the country and overseas. I’m still with them today, and showing with them led to other shows, galleries and paintings finding homes. Gosh, I’ve never really thought about things like this much as the focus is always on making the next paintings and staying alive.
Can you give our readers some background on your art?
Most of my paintings these days are these abstract, color fields of repetitive mark-making that are about color harmonies, meditation and rhythms of some sort. For myself, the best ones work similar to when you look up in the sky and see a nice cloud formation and think to yourself “hmm…I like that” and your day is magically enhanced by beauty. These paintings are very textural too if you can imagine a musical score set in braille, but composed by a non-musical alien who is trying to translate flowing water into musical notes.
Anyway, I started these paintings after a friend took me to a Zen rock garden at a temple in Kyoto (Ryoanji Temple) so that certainly had an influence. In addition, I make these child-like landscape paintings that are also about color, but are also an escape from a maddening world. These paintings feature little cottages, dancing lollipop trees, swing sets, see-saws, white picket fences and other iconic images that got stuck in my head from childhood.
What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
You can see my paintings at the Rice Polak Gallery in Provincetown (http://ricepolakgallery.com/), Inclusions Gallery in San Francisco (http://inclusionsgallery.com/) and Hiromart Gallery in Tokyo (http://hiromartgallery.com). Buying paintings from galleries and supporting the art scene in your town or city is the best way to indirectly and directly support my work.
The most exciting scenes have a healthy mixture of commercial galleries, artist-run spaces (like Gallery 263 in Cambridge where I’m a member artist – http://gallery263.com/), museums, collectors, art schools and universities so supporting the activities in Boston/Cambridge/Somerville is important to keep the art, literary and music scenes vibrant.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.PeterArvidson.com
- Email: peterarvid@gmail.com
- Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/peter_arvidson
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/peterarvidsonpaintings
Image Credit:
Peter Arvidson
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