Interview by Mark Westall
So I’m heading to see the English artist Peter Peri for a studio visit / interview.
He’s about to have his first solo show in Asia with one of the region’s biggest galleries, Pearl Lam.
He is an artist who is engaged with ‘psychologically charged modernism’, so I’m looking forward to seeing his studio, which I’m imagining will be a kind of calm, aesthetic, modernist palace. In fact it’s more like. “Jesus! What a mess”
FAD: Peter, what’s with the studio?
PP: Yes it is a bit of a mess. The building I haven’t really been using the last few months – they just boarded up the windows and I got a bit of hassle from the ‘builders ‘ – but I get free use of the courtyard which is handy for the spray painting .
FAD: So…How did the relationship with Pearl Lam start?
PP: Well I took part in a group show in January and before that Pearl came down here about one and a half years ago, and we have been working towards this solo show since then really. It’s going to be in the Colonial Barracks in Singapore.
I’ve produced nine pieces for the show.
Just straight horizontal lines and large sections of dark verticals and the lines are thin and create a flickering effect. They all have the same elements. In fact I’ve been using the same elements in my work since I left college and started painting again.
The ones for Singapore have less material build up than these studio artworks and are more optical.
This one here is super heavy / clogged.
It was quite a visceral experience painting (it). A 10 minute walk from my house down the hill then into the studio and BAM. So one of the ideas for Singapore was to get rid of all the material weight.
FAD: So how did you end up making these modernist pictures with marker pen and spray paint ?
PP: Well when I was a teenager I used to be into graffiti – on trains, building etc. and when I was 17 I got caught and was sent to Hollosley Bay Young offenders unit outside Ipswich. And it worked! I wasn’t really a sporty kid and having to get up at 6am every morning and run for few miles was not my idea of fun.
So after all that I decided to do a Degree in Graphics at Central St Martins
And while there, a visiting lecturer who was a Polish Painter who studied under HenrykTomaszewski changed my career.
She taught using his methods and helped me to find a way into painting, or thinking about painting,that was a long way from designing logos.
She also helped me get a scholarship to Warsaw to study in the academy there with the help of the British Council. I spent a year there.
This was ’95 / ‘96
Then I came back to London and holed up in a garage in Roehampton for five years, painting on my own.
Then after this I went back to college and did my MA at Chelsea
And then I featured in New Contempories 2003.
FAD: You were just painting for 5 years in a garage? So what was the work like?
PP: Well my dad lives in Ramsgate now and when I go there I see the work. It’s erm…well…
One of the big decisions I made when I went back to College at Chelsea was to stop using artist’s materials; oil paints, acrylics, and stuff.
When I went to Chelsea I decided to go back to the materials I used when I was younger, marker pen and spray paint.
In my 5 years in the garage I’d tried lots of things.
I experimented and basically I produced a lot of bad paintings.
FAD: So now you use just marker pen and spray paint?
PP: For the paintings, yes I use medium tip marker pen – not the large ones – and use silver and black, which was what we used when we went out (doing graffiti) which meant we where covered for both dark and light surfaces.
And for Singapore I’ve used a range of colours not bright or dark
One of the ones that came out the nicest was beige!
FAD: So what was the MA at Chelsea like?
PP: It was good the building was out of town a bit deserted on Bagleys Lane by the river – desolate no distractions.
And it was a great course and Brian Chalkley – Course Director was great he helped me a lot.
And it did what an MA should do
It made you drop what you did before and progress to something else.
I enjoyed it a lot I’d been out of education long enough I was hungry to learn.
FAD: So what’s next after Singapore?
PP: I am going to do a solo residency in Miami in the autumn for 3 months.
I haven’t done anything like this before. I did a residency in China when I was at college, but nothing like this.
But it will be warm and my wife is coming out as well.
I have no idea how much or what kind of work I’ll produce. But it’ll be interesting.
Peter Peri The Reign of Quantity Through to 9th November, 2014 Pearl Lam Galleries, 9 Lock Road, #03-22, Gillman Barracks, Singapore 108937 Singapore. www.pearllam.com/artist/peter-peri/
About the Artist
Peter Peri was born in 1971 in London, UK. He graduated from a Master’s Fine Art programme at Chelsea College of Art and Design, London in 2003. Currently, he lives and works in London, UK. Peri’s primary mediums are drawing, sculpture and painting: three distinct bodies of work which explore the tension between line and volume, figuration and abstraction, and the question of tradition and influence in Modernism. Peter Peri had his recent solo exhibitions Last Family (2013) at Almine Rech Gallery, Brussels, Belgium and We, The Children Of The 20th Century (2011) at Galerie Almine Rech, Paris, France. He has also shown at Art Now (2007), Tate Britain, London, UK; Country 10 (2006), Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland; Classified: Contemporary British Art from the Tate Collection (2009), Tate Britain, London, UK; and How to Improve the World, 60 years of British Art—Arts Council Collection, Hayward Gallery, London, UK. His works are in the permanent collections of Tate Modern, Saatchi Gallery, Victoria & Albert Museum, Arts Council of Great Britain Collection in UK, and UBS Funds (Kunsthalle Basel) in Switzerland. About Pearl Lam Galleries Founded by Pearl Lam, Pearl Lam Galleries is a driving force within Asia’s contemporary art scene. With over 20 years of experience exhibiting Asian and Western art and design, it is one .
More Installation Pictures from Peter Peri The Reign of Quantity Preview Peal Lam. LINK
