CHROMA
Sarah Peters
May 2 - May 31, 2024
CHROMA: Paintings by Sarah Peters.
Sarah Peters explores intimacy with self through painting, and photography - mostly low brow photography with her cell phone. Sarah uses these digital images to draw from for paintings and other times collaged in a digital format. The easily accessed medium of photography in this digital age makes images a constant source of visual stimulation and optimization. Peters challenges the digital medium by taking intentionally “wrong” images, according to the programming of the camera, and using them as color and texture fields in digital collages and videos. Themes evolve around their immediate surroundings, and the often overlooked beauty of the mundane and routine. Fascinated by the messiness of humans, the piles and vacant businesses, their photographs are personal yet general enough to not give much away to the viewer.
The paintings are more visceral and the process includes a color based exploration of inner life - figuratively and often literally. Vantage points askew and off constellations of objects yank the viewer from a landscape or interior still life into a strange dream like daze of voyeurism. Only hints of a person are displayed on the tables, the window sills, or the bed. Landscapes are drifting out of the frames and become a thought to finish. The colors vibrate from the tree trunk into the brush and no painterly gesture is spared to convey the pleasure of paint and the life of color.
This exhibit is on view at Gambrel Gallery from May 3 until May 31, 2024.
Artist statement:
Sarah Peters is a multidisciplinary artist interested in transforming the mundane everyday objects through formal choices that intend to invoke narrative and imagination. Their Process oriented practice employs a variety of mediums such as photography, painting, sculpture, and video.Her practice is an emotional and material exploration of the intersection of narrative, memory, collapse, and the practice of archiving and playful world building as a means of hope. They see their practice as a way of processing and illustrating their experience in an honest- yet humorous way. Their work has been shown at the Playground Gallery, Congress Yards Projects and The Lodge, in Portland Oregon. They built installations and exhibited work in Mannheim, Heidelberg, Berlin, and Kaiserslautern, in gallery, club and festival settings. Sarah received their MFA in Visual Studies at Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland OR in 2020 and currently teaches and works in southern Oregon.