Peter Mammes: Iconography of the Just || Exhibition Catalogue

PETER MAMMES

ICONOGRAPHY OF THE JUST

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An Exhibition of new and recent works at ROOM Space & Projects 11.07.2014 - 09.08.2014 !

EXHIBITION CATALOGUE

PETER MAMMES ICONOGRAPHY OF THE JUST

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An Exhibition of new and recent works at ROOM Space & Projects 11.07.2014 - 09.08.2014

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

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The exhibition is the first solo presentation in 2014 of new and recent works by Peter Mammes. The artists practice is framed within the intricate and repeated use of collected patterns alongside juxtapositions of referential iconography influenced by the artist’s travels in India, Russia and South Africa.

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According to the Mammes his work “ deals with contradictions, discrimination, deformity and hypocrisy.” The intention is to allow the viewer to question his/her own established perspectives of what is deemed normal or acceptable. At times macabre iconography and repeated patterns are used to unsettle us in the seemingly beautiful compositions that make up the presentation. Applying his artistic license Peter Mammes juxtaposes problematic historical figures along side deformity, guillotines and their symbolic value along side skulls and animal skeletal remains as signifiers of humanity, the polemics surrounding nationalism, and questioning of what is deemed as “the absurd”. The exhibition confronts notions of humanity and its failures, beauty and associated contradictions.

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Peter says: “ The current state of the world is precariously kept in its place, our views about gender, class and race are manipulated to fit a certain norm, those norms have not been constant throughout time and they are also different in different locations around the world. … Our deformities, culture and gender does not give us a free reign to discriminate and judge because from another contextual perspective we are the exotic and strange.”

! ! ! ABOUT THE ARTIST !

Born in Johannesburg in 1986, Peter has always had an interest in the macabre and absurdity, he began drawing as a young child and attended the National School of the Arts in Braamfontein where he finished school in 2004.Peter has worked as a puppeteer's apprentice and a prop maker specialising in making hangman's nooses for a few theatre productions. Peter is an autodidact and reads on a wide range of topics and is very interested in economics, philosophy and physics. Peter has exhibited extensively and has had several solo exhibitions, he went into hiding for a long period to develop a new technique and style, only exhibiting in a group show or two during that period but emerged reinvented with a completely new style of drawing. Peter travels extensively to find the imagery and patterns he uses in his work. He collects medical instruments, specialising in birth instruments. Peter has worked for months in different locations so as to assimilate the culture and surroundings of that particular society first in Moscow, Russia and more recently in Varanasi, India where one can see open air cremations. Peter is influenced by Kathe Kolwitz, Helnwein, Van Gogh and Klimt. His work can be found in the ABSA Corporate collection and Michellangelo Hotel Collection.

Antipathy 2012 Ink and paintbrush on Drafting Paper 84cm x 59.5cm