Sammy Peters: Boundaries Extended

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