“I have painted all over the country; from Maine to the West Coast, from Vancouver Island to Hawaii and Costa Rica, but my work is usually associated with a subset of painters exploring the canyon lands of the Southwest. I continue to work from photographs I shoot principally in the National Parks. Images from Zion, Monument Valley, Bryce and the California coast are represented here. If these icons of the Park System are not immediately recognizable it is because I worked through the most popular views and “vistas” years ago. Now I concentrate more closely on the details in an effort to continually find a fresh point of view. The work is ever-evolving technically as well as visually. If today landscape is the most widely practiced form of Realism it is a testament to the change in consciousness that my generation of painters has wrought.
I have forever admired the great Realists. There is a basic visual magic in the ability of pigments to credibly translate our 3-dimensional world to the flat 2- dimensional world of paper and canvas. A good painting allows us to momentarily enter another’s consciousness, and implies dimensions beyond what we can normally see. Painting is therefore a spiritual exercise, requiring imagination to create credibility. Beyond that, the power of this translation depends on the subject and the particular point of view (physical and psychological) of the painter.
With the intent to share my pleasures, I have concentrated on the things of the world I most enjoy looking at. These usually exhibit forms that are the product of a life force being acted upon by a set of natural laws (gravity, decay, erosion) over their given life span. These are the most beautiful forms I know, and by repeated examination, the most meaningful.”
Peter Holbrook
Website
http://peterholbrook.net/
