Peter Holbrook Artworks

I often hear how ‘photographic’ these paintings are. If I don’t see them that way it is because I know the transformations each has been through.  I invite the viewer to take a closer look and discover  how abstract the paintings are.  ‘How very un-photographic.’  Never mind the hundreds of changes, large and small, made in the course of the translation; those made for the sake of clarity, and presumably to cover their own tracks.  The viewer who can enjoy a paint surface as a fabric, tightly woven here, loosely woven there, applied in a way that changes its appearance at different viewing distances, will come much closer to my intent, and my enjoyment of the painting process.

I think we have trouble seeing wild places clearly.  They operate on a different set of rules, and in a different time scale where man’s tenure on Earth is a mere blip.  That may be why they are unique and valuable and worth trying to paint.  These places are important to me; I return to them regularly, and have done so over twenty years.

For many people, abstraction seems opposed to realism.  On the contrary, it is actually the method, the process of realism.  The roots of the word ‘abstract’ come from trahere (to draw or separate) and ab, (from).  So abstraction should be understood as taking from; selecting on or another element and leaving the remainder.  This operates at every level in the image making process.

I have always admired the great realists. There’s a basic visual magic in the ability of pigments to credibly translate our three-dimensional world to the flat, two-dimensional world of paper and canvas.  A good painting allows us to momentarily enter another’s consciousness and implies dimensions beyond what is normally seen.  It makes painting a spiritual exercise, requiring imagination to create credibility.