Sammy Peters BOUNDARIES EXTENDED
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Sammy Peters Boundaries Extended
March 29 - April 20, 2019
Railyard Arts District | 1613 Paseo de Peralta | Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | tel 505.988.3250 www.lewallengalleries.com | contact@lewallengalleries.com cover: Current: arbitrary; tradition, 2019, oil & mixed media on canvas, 59 x 63 in
Sammy Peters: Boundaries Extended With a career spanning more than five decades, abstract painter Sammy Peters composes multilayered canvases with an alchemical approach to material and image. Through the meticulous accumulation of texture, Peters’ art is admired for its unexpected modulations between opacity and translucency, color and patterning – the result of a singular combination of cold wax media, luminous resins, and richly saturated oils refined over Peters’ long-celebrated painting practice. In these works, an atmosphere of mystery is heightened by geometric forms made to float among backgrounds of sensuous texture. Utilizing a painterly approach to materials descended from his own pedigree in Abstract Expressionism tracing back to the 1960s, Peters’ fields of animated brushwork, paper and fabric are as shrewdly composed as they are improvisational. Peters incorporates a variety of pictorial conventions ranging from semiotics to decoupage, and as a result, his canvases reference the full implications of collage – its textural sophistication as well as its depth of associations. As a result, his coarse, well-worn surfaces evoke a sensation of timelessness that alludes to the breadth of human mark-making through history. As a child in Arkansas during the fifties, Sammy Peters learned about various materials and techniques from his father, who was a sign painter in Little Rock. Peters then received his arts education at the Arkansas Arts Center School of Arts and Drama, Little Rock University, and the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. Over the years, he has received numerous, awards, fellowships, and grants, and was most notably inducted as a MacDowell Fellow in 2000. Most recently, his work was the subject of a traveling museum retrospective exhibition from 2016 to 2017 at the Memphis College of Art, the Butler Center Galleries, and the University of Arkansas.
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Current: arbitrary; tradition (detail)
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Direction: memorable; distraction, 2019, oil and mixed media on canvas, 40 x 30 in 4
Solitude: uncharted; melancholia, 2019, oil and mixed media on canvas, 48 x 48 in 5
Inevitable: collected; destiny, 2019, oil and mixed media on canvas, 48 x 48 in
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Parody: distinct; preservation, 2019, oil and mixed media on canvas, 60 x 48 in
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Appearance: relative; consequence, 2019, oil and mixed media on canvas, 60 x 48 in
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"In Peters' paintings, we see abstract expressionism developing beyond the naive dialectic of expression and repression into the more sophisticated dialectic of the uncontainable and containment. This represents a deepening in the sense of psychic eventfulness. Peters' works take abstract expressionism out of the impasse represented by post-painterly abstraction, which found relief from psychic conflict in surface sensuousness (sensuous difference substituted for and simultaneously denied emotional conflict). The complex sensual energy of Peters' works represent a return to the psychic depths, indeed, and articulation of the psyche at its deepest and most intricate. They are a kind of ultimate 'self'-expression." Donald Kuspit, Author and Critic 1994
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Dependent: observed; boundary, 2019, oil and mixed media on canvas, 60 x 72 in 11
Function: existent; purpose, 2019, oil and mixed media on canvas, 60 x 48 in
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Awareness: projecting; potential, 2018, oil and mixed media on canvas, 16 x 12 in 13
Assertion: inevitable; expression, 2019, oil and mixed media on canvas, 59 x 63 in
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Continued: significant; metaphor, 2019, oil and mixed media on canvas, 48 x 48 in
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Disclosed: inner; affirmation, 2018, Oil and mixed media on canvas, 30 x 40 in
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Covert: historical; illusion, 2019, oil and mixed media on canvas, 72 x 60 in
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Commitment: beginning; position, 2018, oil and mixed media on canvas, 16 x 12 in
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Declared: meaning; revealed, 2019, oil and mixed media on canvas, 60 x 48 in 20
Excavation: constant; sacrifice, 2019, oil and mixed media on canvas, 40 x 30 in 21
"Resulting from unsettled relationships, the facture in Peters' new work is seductive but not slick, alluring but not pandering. Its appeal resides as much in its promise of deeper perceptual challenges as in its indication of partial (but only partial resolution." Peter Frank, Art Critic and Curator 2001
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Distinction: restrained: event, 2019, oil and mixed media on canvas, 60 x 72 in
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Articulation: fundamental; integrity, 2019, oil and mixed media on canvas, 48 x 36 in 24
Irreducible: absolute; content, 2018, oil and mixed media on canvas, 60 x 48 in 25
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Excavation: embattled; return, 2017 oil and mixed media on canvas 68 x 90 inches
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Appearance: controlled; purpose, 2017 oil and mixed media on canvas, 48 x 48 inches
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Alternate: relative; conception, 2017 oil and mixed media on canvas, 16 x 12 inches
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Constellation: justified; displacement, 2019, oil and mixed media on canvas, 60 x 48 in
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Sammy Peters
b. 1939 Shreveport, Louisiana
Education
Selected Group Exhibitions
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR
2017
LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM
Little Rock University, Little Rock, AR
2016
Mason Fine Art, Atlanta, GA
Arkansas Arts Center School of Arts and Drama, Little Rock, AR
Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, Little Rock, AR
San Francisco Mime Troupe, San Francisco, CA
2014
Arkansas State University, Jonesboro, AR
Greg Thompson Fine Art, Little Rock, AR
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2012
Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, AR
2019
LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM (9 solo exhibitions
2011
Winthrop Rockefeller Legacy Exhibition, Morrilton, AR
1999-2019)
2010
Stremmel Gallery, Reno, NV
2016
Then and Now, Memphis College of Art, Hyde Gallery;
2009
Kouros Gallery, New York, NY
University of Arkansas-Fort Smith, Windgate Gallery
2007
Historic Arkansas Museum, Little Rock, AR
2015
LewAllen Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM
2006
Gail Harvey Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ
2014
Arkansas Tech University, Russelville, AR
2000
Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, AR
2013
Alan Avery Art Company, Atlanta, GA
1999
Anita Shapolsky Gallery, New York, NY (3 group exhibition
2008
The Heights Gallery, Little Rock, AR (7 shows 1986 - 2008)
1995-1999)
Alan Avery Art Company, Atlanta, GA
1993
University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Tuscaloosa, AL
Bentley Projects, Phoenix, AZ
Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York, NY
2007
Multiple Impressions, New York, NY
The Arkansas Arts Center
2005
Bentley Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ
1987
University of Arkansas at Little Rock
2004
Contemporanea, Hot Springs, AR
Craighead/Green Gallery, Dallas, TX
Awards & Fellowships
2003
Hendrix College, Conway, AR
2003
VSC Press Printmaking Fellowship
2002
New Gallery, Houston, TX, (2 solo exhibitions 1989-2002)
2001
Vermont Studio Center Fellowship
1998
Cindric Meyer Gallery, Boca Raton, FL
2000
MacDowell Fellowship
1996
Allene Lapides Gallery, Santa Fe, NM, (4 solo exhibitions
1992
M-AAA/NEA Fellowship
1992-1996)
1967
Juror's Award, 10th Delta Annual
1995
The Bell Gallery, Birmingham, MI
1965
Juror's Top Award, 10th Annual Mid-South Exhibition
The New Gallery, Houston, TX
Juror's Special Mention Award, 6th Dixie Annual
1994
The Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, GA
University of Central Ark., Conway, AR
Selected Collections
The Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, AR
The Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, AR
University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, Pine Bluff, AR
Arkansas Tech University, Russelville, AR
Stephen F. Austin University, Nacogdoches, TX
Hencrix College, Conway, AR
1992
The Lowe Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
Hot Springs Fine Arts Center, Hot Springs, AR
1991
Shidoni Gallery, Santa Fe, NM, (4 exhibitions 1986-1991)
Mills College, Oakland, CA 31
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Railyard Arts District | 1613 Paseo de Peralta | Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | tel 505.988.3250 www.lewallengalleries.com | contact@lewallengalleries.com Š 2019 LewAllen Contemporary, LLC 34 Artwork Š Sammy Peters