Peter D. Stephens

Peter Stephens (b. 1958) is a painter based in Buffalo, N.Y. He graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and attended the University of Siena in Italy (1978) and Rochester Institute of Technology (1976-78). He has been featured in solo shows at Nina Freudenheim Gallery (Buffalo), TUB Gallery (Miami), Zolla/Lieberman Gallery (Chicago), R. B. Stevenson Gallery (San Diego), Fenimore Art Museum (Cooperstown, N.Y.), Drabinsky & Friedlan Gallery (Toronto), and Bess Cutler Gallery (Los Angeles), among other venues. Stephens’s work is in several museum collections, including the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the Burchfield-Penney, and the Castellani Art Museum in Western New York, as well as the Brooklyn Museum.

In an artist’s statement, he writes:

“In 2007 I was reading excerpts from the mission logs of the Apollo astronauts. That was the beginning of an idea to transform the concept of landscape painting by changing the frame of reference. Further readings in the history of Astronomy, Physics, and Cosmology have expanded the scope to include the structure and behavior of the material world at the extreme scales of the very large and the very small. 

Beginning with NASA images from the Apollo missions, the trajectory then proceeded to the electronic images sent from satellites currently orbiting Mars. The Martian topographic images then evolved into computer manipulations and generative image transformations. This became the departure point from a concrete place to an increasingly conceptual space of layered matrices and components, essentially building abstract paintings with a system of given elements and the parameters to affect their change.” [1]

For more information on Peter Stephens, visit http://www.peterdstephens.com/.

[1] Peter Stephens, untitled artist’s statement, http://www.peterdstephens.com/#!paintings-list/cjg9. (Accessed 2/17/2015)