A Conversation with Artist Christopher Peter
How a family tradition inspired the artist's collection of painted ski silhouettes.
SKI SILHOUETTE III CHRISTOPHER PETER Acrylic, oil, handmade paper, gold leaf on canvas 48 x 60 inches, mountaingalleries.com
THE ARTIST
Christopher Peter
FAMILY TRADITION
“The primary subject matter, the silhouette, is a visual vocabulary that I grew up with. My grandma used to do that all the time. When I would visit her, she had all these silhouettes around her house that she had done of my family members. She did this as a family craft tradition, and I grew up seeing it all the time. As an adult, I was drawn to that sort of language.”
LAYERS OF MEANING
“I really love that there are no hard-and-fast rules for what can be a painting. Once I start a piece, it’s a stacking, layered process. I’ll rip and cut the collage elements so that they make sense to me, and I’ll start building up the surface, and then layering paint on top of that, and more collage, more paint, more collage, more paint, until you get this dense ground, and then the figure gets painted on top. In the end, when you see the finished piece, it’s reading as unified. A good painting always shows you more, the more time that you spend with it. I get that through covering elements up and leaving—even if it’s a trace, even if it’s a texture that’s covered in this white negative space—you can still intuit that something was there. I love that it activates this curious part of your mind, and you get to play detective a little bit.”
A MESSAGE OF JOY
“A sense of joy is the primary read that I intend. Happiness, joy, delight—all the things that painting is to me.”
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Peter is creating new work based on winter themes including skiing.
