26 March – 14 April 2015
about the exhibition
A formal sense of geometry, precise composition and unique tonal quality typify Peter Boggs’ paintings. Several European cities continue to inspire his art practice with a focus on interiors such as museums and villas. Peter informs us that the raw material for his work comes from “reflected light in passageways and museums as well as unknown interior settings, windows and doors with views to distant rooms and universal distant landscapes beyond”. This has allowed Peter to focus more directly on the mysterious qualities of light. Rather than presenting a literal depiction of these spaces, the works are inspired by memory and the idea of the place, imbuing the works with a dream like quality and a universal sense of place. The total absence of human figures adds an ethereal quality to these austere and restrained scenes and our attention is drawn to the precise structural composition, naturally-inspired geometry and carefully observed areas of shadow and light. The viewer is drawn into an engagement with what is not shown, the implication of a reality separate from that which we initially see. Art critic Professor Sasha Grishin says of the artist, “Peter Boggs is one of the finest tonal painters working in Australia today. Each work is beautifully distilled, resolved geometrically and tonally and where within the subdued palette there is a magical glowing inner luminosity”.
Born in New Zealand, Peter studied at Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland, and taught painting and drawing in England and Spain before moving to Australia in 1987. He has held fifty solo exhibitions in New Zealand and Australia, and was a finalist in both the McMillan Ford Art Award and the Fleurieu Biennale, South Australia. In 1998, he won the Tattersall’s Club Landscape Art Prize and more recently in 2008 was awarded the winner of the Kedumba Drawing Award, NSW. Peter’s work is represented in various collections including Parliament House, Kedumba Drawing Collection, Castlemaine Art Gallery, University of Queensland Art Museum, Newcastle Art Gallery, News Limited, Tattersall’s Club, Telstra, NZ Education Board and Auckland City Art Gallery.
