Peter Clayton

Chance, Choice and Change

25th January – 1st March

Contact us for full catalogue

Press Release

Tarpey Gallery is proud to host an exhibition of painting and printmaking by the multi talented Leicester based artist Peter Clayton from the 25th January to 1st March. Taking inspiration from people, places and literature – Chance, Choice and Change encompasses a wide variety of media and approaches including; portraits on panels combining various print and painting media, paint and silk-screen collages and a series of small mixed media work on panels inspired by coastal and woodland environments.

Since he graduated in 1981 Peter has shown in over 160 solo and group exhibitions around the country and has work in private and public collections around the world. He has taken part in a number of residences and undertaken many commissions for interior designers, publishers, museums and art galleries.

Working from the inspiring and supportive environment of Leicester Print Workshop his work explores a wide variety of approaches and over the past twelve months has collaborated with – amongst others – filmmakers, photographers and university departments which help make up what is an extremely diverse and exciting studio practice.

Artist Statement

My landscapes are inspired by travels and environments closer to home. Rather than being of a single viewpoint the pictures are an amalgamation of experiences. Some are based on specific places others more about the mood or physical attributes of a type of environment such as woodland or gardens.

The paintings are quite small and intimate but creating them on wooden panels I hope gives them a physical presence. I often combine a variety of media in the one image – acrylic, silk-screen printing or collaged photographic elements for example. They build up organically through the painting process – one layer leading to another.

My silk-screen prints are developed from my paintings. Paintings are photographed or scanned and manipulated on Photoshop, turned into separations, then printed in three or four colours. They aren’t, though, reproductions of the paintings but separate entities with their own textures, moods, scale and colour schemes. Editions are very small – there are usually no more than ten prints in an edition.

Sometimes elements of the screen prints end up as part of a new painting. And so the process goes round again…