Denis Peterson - Themes of Work

Themes of Work

His more recent photorealistic works encompass meticulously detailed New York cityscapes that focus on imposing ten-story-high billboards as POP icons overlooking busy city streets, pedestrians, and vehicles. "In Peterson's paintings, people are present but are typically caught under the weight and pressure of billboards and advertisements that loom heavily over the streets they inhabit. For Peterson, this is a commentary on contemporary society and its effects on people." "Somewhere during the process of painting Peterson imbued something of himself into the work, which is why his images for me succeed where his contemporaries do not. He doesn’t just paint street scenes, but for me these are his most effective images. Devoid of any human presence, his locations are ripe for ghosts, the atmosphere heavy with unassuaged yearning." "His most recent work involves street scenes with people being ‘weighed down’ by advertising billboards, like the ones showing New York. Some of his earlier work looked at the suffering felt by people imposed by governments and societies raising moral and political questions about military regimes."

"Denis Peterson’s hyperrealist paintings are visual statements peppered with underlying socio-economic paradigms. In viewing them, it becomes immediately apparent that techniques and methods are a product of his work, not the other way around. The illusion of reality as a transformational aesthetic is a virtual means to an end."

"People exist, and interact with the world around them. The artist himself/herself exists in Metamodernism, and comments on his/her world. One caveat - the artist is removed from, and he knows about that separation as he/she observes himself/herself observing people and the ordered/disordered socio/economic/political spacetimes they inhabit.

Denis Peterson exemplifies this...characteristic of Metamodernism/Popomo, and at the same time his work addresses a sense of loss, pain/angst concerning our position in a culture dominated by corporate America. People are viewed (once again) as individuals, though caught in the overwhelming commodification of everything, some so completely lost, that they are no longer individuals. The images themselves seem to go beyond, past, refer back to photo realism, and photography. I see a connection to Social Realism because it often put a face to its own dogma by showing individuals caught in the social/political/cultural juggernaut. Peterson’s work inhabits these concerns."