Kevin Peterson, Painter

I was checking out the Juxtapoz website (as I often do) and they had a feature on a pretty cool artist named Kevin Peterson who, judging by the thumbnails, took photos of people in front of graffiti in urban settings. Uh, scratch that. Paintings of people in front of graffiti in urban settings. Uh, wow.

I do enjoy people making paintings about painting as well as the amusingly meta aspect of making representational realist art based on graffiti – but beyond the mental gymnastics, Peterson can really paint.

image via Juxtapoz

Houston, Texas-based painter Kevin Peterson has become quite popular in the art world in recent years, especially because his photorealistically rendered portraits have both youthful and urban art elements that suck you into their location. Peterson is set to open Amend, a solo exhibition at Thinkspace Gallery in Culver City this Saturday, November 3, 2012. (view a previous body of work from Kevin here)

Here’s a couple of shots from the Juxtapoz article of Peterson working in his studio so you can see his working method. Straight-up painting is what that is.

Kevin Peterson – WIP – studio – images via Juxtapoz

If you check out Peterson’s site, you can see that his work keeps getting better and better. He’s exploring some different directions, but it’s these portraits that appeal to me personally the most. There is something playful in how meticulous and process-oriented the reproduction of the graffiti and run-down urban surfaces is, and the juxtaposition of the innocent, happy subject in these grim settings is provocative, but upbeat.

©Kevin Peterson – Old Wall – via kevinpetersonstudios.com

Here’s what Peterson himself has to say about all this:

My work is about the varied journeys we take through life. It’s about growing up and living in a world that is broken. These paintings are about trauma, fear and loneliness and the strength that it takes to survive and thrive. They each contain the contrast of the untainted, young and innocent against a backdrop of a worn, ragged, and defiled world. Support versus restraint, bondage versus freedom, and tension versus slack are all themes that I often visit. My work deals with isolation, loneliness and longing teamed with a level of optimistic hope. Issues of race and the division of wealth have arisen in my recent work. This work deals with the idea of rigid boundaries, the hopeful breakdown of such restrictions, as well as questions about the forces that orchestrate our behavior.
Artist’s statement 

So yeah, Kevin Peterson. Definitely a new favourite!