A LOOK AT THE VISIONARY IMPASTO ARTIST: PETER TERRIN
IMPASTO artist magazine
Peter Terrin:
A Million Little Pieces by Chris Simmons Behind the Art by Rob Hibbs
JULY 2019
JULY 2019
About the Artist
Peter Terrin He discovered his passion for drawing at an early age when his father, a history and language teacher, began incorporating his illustrations of ancient figures into classroom lessons. After graduating from Providenciaal Technisch Instituut Kortrijk as a Textile Designer, Peter embarked on a journey of self-discovery. He has traveled extensively for the past fourteen years, living and working in Ibiza, Austria, Venezuela, The Dominican Republic and Mexico. His most cherished possessions are the memories collected along the way – a secluded cliff in Ibiza, his wooden hut on the beach in the Dominican Republic, fishing in the Orinoco River and speaking with children in Los Roques, Venezuela. His work can be found all around the world within client’s homes and in editorials such as Living Design and Rivera Maya Magazine. Art has always been a part of Peter’s being. There were no defining or pivotal moments which determined the course of his life. His need to paint has always been as vital as breathing and eating; providing necessary fuel for the mind and soul. His passion for people was reinforced through years of travel after graduating from Textile Design School in Belgium. Peter uses his unique style to capture emotion, mood and feeling through pallet knives and acrylic paint on large scale canvas. Peter’s disciplined approach to his art is reflective of the same dedication needed for his other passion as a triathlete and his core belief that life is beautiful. PUBLICATIONS Diario de Yucatan 2016 Al Hayat, U.A.E. 2014 Het laatste nieuws Belgium 2014 De streekkrant Belgium 2014 De weekbode Beligium 2012-2014 Beyond the Route Magazine 2013 ARQROO Arquitectura de Quintana Roo 2012
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IMPASTO ARTIST MAGAZINE
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JULY 2019
Peter Terrin:
A Million Little Pieces
by Chris Simmons Peter Terrin is an established artist who is selling his large paintings all over the world for thousands of dollars. His art is gaining popularity due to his skill of using vibrant color and individual spots of acrylic paint to add life-like shading and lighting to his artwork. His dots are much larger than digital pixels, and they are much more obvious to the eye, but essentially, they create the same effect. The result is an extremely colorful picture with the subject appearing to break free of the canvas. Along with shading and lighting, the dots also add texture to the painting. Terrin always enjoyed drawing, but it was only around age 13 or 14 when he realized he wanted to be an artist. His father, a classical teacher, refused to send him to art school, as he was against the career choice. His father had the perception of the “starving artist,� and wanted his son to choose a more successful path. Being unable to receive training meant Terrin had to teach himself, and he did so by studying famous painters that he idealized such as Jackson Pollock, and Chuck Close.
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IMPASTO ARTIST MAGAZINE
During the summer months between teachings, Terrin’s father made a living as a tour guide. One summer he took Terrin to Paris, where he saw street artists expressing themselves freely with drawings. This solidified his desire to paint, and he found himself in Textile Design School in Belgium. “My parents wouldn’t let me attend art school, so I had to find something where art was involved, so I became a textile designer,” Terrin said during a 2015 Spectrum-Miami, a juried contemporary art exhibit. Today, Terrin’s art has far progressed from textile design. It starts with a photograph of a model. Then a template is sketched out on canvas, where it is then painted using acrylic paint and a pallet knife. The acrylic paint dries quickly, so new layers can be added, and the knife allows the user to swirl and mix colors easily. It’s apparent why Terrin uses these as his weapon of choice. Finally, the canvas is laid flat, and paint is splashed and dripped onto the artwork. The drops are aimed at specific areas to create effect, but in the end random paint winds up everywhere. The artist paints animals, scenery, and even inspirational phrases, but the majority of Terrin’s artwork is portraits. “My large canvas art is focused on people and their emotions,” he said to Artist Mafia, an online gallery. “I’m inspired by faces I see while traveling, images of people in magazines and on the internet.” This inspiration is evident, because if you’re looking at a Terrin painting, it’s likely a painting of a face. He uses people of all colors and genders, but the majority of his models are not smiling. Instead, they have more neutral expressions, and some of them look as if they are lost in emotion. I found that ironic, as Terrin doesn’t follow the “Great art is born from great pain” ideology. He expressed this in his self-documentary, Portrait of An Artist. “I don’t fit in that typical artist profile,” he said. “I don’t need my demons or my misery to produce art. As many artists do, I can do a great job in this. I think I use my happiness to produce my art.” So if his inspiration is happiness, why is he so easily drawn to the most emotional images? And why is he able to capture it so well? It made sense to me when Terrin said in his documentary, “I want people to look at my work and not say, ‘That’s a beautiful lady,’ but say, ‘How the hell did he do that?’ That’s the main thing of my art.” It makes sense to me because if you look at the world’s beauty as a picture, you must remember the little things that work together to paint it.
JULY 2019
Peter Terrin:
Inspiration “My large canvas art is focused on people and their emotions. I’m inspired by faces I see while traveling, images of people in magazines and on the Internet. Occasionally I’m moved by political issues, or people who are heroic in my view. I have no complex stories, no mystical illustrations of dreams, no childhood traumas – for me it’s mainly about how I get my paint on the canvas. The journey towards the final result is always a magical trip of exploration and discovery – complete ecstasy – no matter the result.” The dolphins which are right outside his studio, are also an inspiration. He says they give off a very good energy. Peter mainly paints people, but he doesn’t think they are the main stars. He believes his technique should be the star. He doesn’t want people to see a piece and say, “mmm that’s a beautiful woman.” He wants them to say, “How the hell did you do that?” He believes triathlons, which he participates in, are a very important aspect in his paintings. By training for them, he gains energy, which makes him happier and that makes his paintings more colorful and interesting.
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IMPASTO ARTIST MAGAZINE
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JULY 2019
what you’ll need
to have & know: Pre-gessoed support canvas Spray bottle filled with water Acrylic or oil paints Brushes Painting knife Objects to use for texture Varnish
tips & How to:
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Painting is an art that allows you to express yourself to show not just what something looks like, but how it makes you feel. One of the best ways to give your painting a sense of movement, motion and passion is with impasto. Impasto is a painting technique in which very thick layers of paint are applied and shaped, almost as if you are sculpting right on the canvas with paint instead of clay. Use oil or acrylic paints, which are thick enough to achieve this textured style.
Allow your creativity to take over the process. Load the brush and lightly drag it over the surface, smearing the paint on as though you were buttering fragile, crumbling pastry. Swirl it or stretch it across. Dot it. Use different objects to help build up the texture, or even rake your fingers through the paint to leave tracks and ridges.
If using a stretch canvas, make sure it is very tightly stretched and secured. The impasto technique requires a firm surface. Use a quality thick paint; if your paint is at all runny, add a thickening medium, available where painting supplies are sold. While oil and acrylics are the best paints for this technique, it may be possible to use other paints, such as tempera or casein, if enough thickening agents are added. These are closer to acrylic in that they dry faster, however it can be very hard to work with them and the final product will not have as much texture as a piece done with acrylics or oil paint. Work fast if you are working with acrylic paint. Acrylics dry quickly. You can’t come back later and change what is already on the canvas, you can only add more wet paint on top of it. Oil paints can take months to properly dry. If you painted with oil paints, set your painting in a place where it will be undisturbed for up to six months.
IMPASTO ARTIST MAGAZINE
HOW TO:
impasto Spray the back of the canvas with water in a mister to dampen it, which will make it even more taut. If you are using a wood, masonite or other hard canvas, spraying with water is not necessary. Paint a base coat on the support using a large a large, flat brush or painting knife. This coat should be randomly applied because you want to begin creating texture to which the thicker paint coatings added later will adhere to
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Apply additional texture, if desired, to the wet paint. Crumple paper, a plastic bag or foil and scrub the wet paint with it, or press it into the paint and pull it away from the support. The hard bumps and dents on the crumpled item create tracks and raised areas in the wet paint. Alternately, use a paper towel or sponge with the press-and-pull-away method to create a stucco-like texture. Add additional layers of paint if desired and add more texture. Squeeze the paint directly out of the tube onto the support if you want. Use your instincts to create textures that excite
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Wait for the initial coat to dry if desired, however this is not necessary as you can continue to build on and rework the initial layers with wet-on-wet paint. If you want to allow drying time between coats, you may prefer acrylic paints because they dry within hours no matter how thickly you lay them on the support. Oil paints can take days or even weeks to dry, so they are better suited to a wet-on-wet technique. Add more layers of color, using a brush, a knife or a more unconventional tool, like a rag or a toothbrush. Allow the
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colors to interact, but be careful not to blend them too much, especially if using a wet-on-wet technique, or they will get muddy.
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Locate your dark, shadowy areas. Highlight them with lighter colors to bring depth and attention to them. You can highlight the area with white or add a little of the original color to white and mix it. Alternately, to really draw attention to a dark area, highlight it with a complementary color; for example, use yellow on purple. Don’t cover up the dark areas entirely, you don’t want to lose them. Just touch on lighter paint with your knife or some other object, little by little, to build
JULY 2019
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Abaete (Good Person) ACRYLIC ON CANVAS 140 cm x 160 cm
IMPASTO ARTIST MAGAZINE
Behind the Art:
Peter Terrin by Rob Hibbs
Peter Terrin’s oversized portraits, which are electric with color, grab the attention of the viewer and graphically reveal emotion. The Belgian artist currently lives in Mexico but travels extensively; he uses his artwork to draw viewers into the situations of people from around the world. Terrin’s Kayapo Series, which he created last year, was inspired by a January 2014 National Geographic article about the Kayapo people of Brazil. The Kayapo live in the eastern part of the Amazon rainforest and fight relentlessly to preserve the forest and their tribal traditions. “I was immediately moved to do whatever I could to raise awareness of these people, who are fighting to protect the fragile rainforest—the lungs of planet Earth,” Terrin says. “Using only palette knives, acrylic paint and canvas, I started on a journey of creating 10 large-scale portraits using the authorized work of National Geographic photographers Cristina Mittermeier and Martin Schoeller, along with renowned environmental photographer Art Wolfe.” Proceeds of Terrin’s work will be donated to the Kayapo tribe, which continues to struggle to defend its land and way of life. Terrin says his style has been referred to as “modern pointillism”: bold strokes that appear abstract when viewed up close and come into focus only when the viewer steps away from the canvas. “The challenge is always capturing the character of my subjects. Working on this series was an emotional experience, as their struggles, strength, innocence and hope were so clearly evident in their eyes and etched on their stoic faces,” he says. Terrin advises artists to always believe in themselves and keep working on developing their own style and technique. “[Art] requires passion, determination and discipline. The key to success is to practice every day. Keep an open mind and a positive attitude.”
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JULY 2019
Golden Fluid Acrylics are highly intense, permanent acrylic colors with a consistency similar to heavy cream. Produced from lightfast pigments, not dyes, they offer very strong colors with very thin consistencies, and contain no fillers or extenders. Golden Fluid Acrylics are ideal for spraying, brushing, and staining. Golden Artist Colors, Inc., started creating Golden Fluid Colors on a custom basis for artists requesting a low-viscosity, pigment-saturated paint. Some of these artists wanted to pour, puddle, and drip their acrylic paints, others wanted to stain, using the acrylics as an alternative to watercolors, and still others wanted to use the paints for spray application. Many artists were already thinning Golden Heavy Body Acrylics with water to achieve these effects. Although simply adding water or medium met the needs of most artists, some felt the resulting paint was not strong enough. These artists desired an undiluted acrylic paint that would provide optimal tinting strength and coverage.
Eventually, the popularity of Golden’s Fluid custom formula reached a point where the company was able to introduce it as a standard line of products. Unlike mixtures of heavy-bodied paints and water, which produce weak color and films by dilution, Golden Fluid Acrylics contain high pigment levels suspended in an acrylic polymer vehicle. The result offers fine dispersion, high tinting strength, durability, flexibility, and good adhesion. Golden Fluid Acrylics are formulated similarly to Golden Heavy Body Acrylics, the main difference being the viscosity or consistency at which the paints are finished. Therefore, the pigment load or color strength of Golden Fluid Acrylic paints is comparable to Golden Heavy Body Acrylics. In fact, because of the greater leveling of Fluid Acrylics, some artists believe Golden’s Fluids are actually stronger than the Heavy Body colors. Golden Fluid Acrylics load a brush more evenly than thicker paints, and they flow consistently off the brush, allowing for longer, more uniform brush strokes. When a heavier stroke is required, the Fluids can be blended with any of the Golden Gel Mediums. Soft, Regular, Heavy, or Extra-Heavy Gels will all thicken the paint to
various extents. Because of the thin consistency and potency of Golden Fluid Acrylics, they are the easiest of all the paint systems to incorporate into powerful gel mixtures. Golden Fluid Acrylics retain excellent flexibility when dry, greatly diminishing the likelihood of cracking that occurs in other natural and synthetic polymer systems. They also can absorb the constant stress and strain placed on canvas when shipped or as it expands and contracts with changes in temperature and humidity. Set of 8 — The colors in this set are recommended for color mixing, tinting, and shading. The set includes Benzimidazolone Yellow Medium, Naphthol Red Light, Quinacridone Magenta, Phthalo Blue (Green Shade), Phthalo Green (Blue Shade), Yellow Ochre, Zinc White, and Titanium White in 0.5 oz (15 ml) bottles. A Golden Fluid Acrylics application guide is also included.
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Professional Fluid Acrylic Set of 10 1 oz (30 ml) LIST $63.99 11
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A LOOK AT THE VISIONARY IMPASTO ARTIST: PETER TERRIN
“Painting is my mistress, my wife, my oxygen, my enemy, my friend - a complete addiction.” Peter Terrin