Denis Peterson

American painter

Denis Peterson (born New York, 1944) is an American hyperrealist painter whose photorealist works have been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, Butler Institute of American Art, Tate Modern, Springville Museum of Art, Corcoran MPA, Museum of Modern Art CZ and Max Hutchinson Gallery in New York.

These photorealistic works are visually compelling; often bearing witness to historical evidence of grotesque mistreatment of people by governments, societies, and systemic classism. His earlier work exposed totalitarian regimes, raising political and moral questions with regard to third world military governments. These hyper real depictions were often seen as a legacy of hatred and intolerance. Visually disturbing subjects of this iconoclastic artist have been statuesque figures and stoic faces painted in an eerily and deafening hyper reality. His subjects are universally depicted with an internalized calm in the face of the surrounding horrors of deadly disease, impending torture, terrorizing fear, and irrational hatred. Thematically, Peterson's hyper realist works are presented in series. Many of his provocative paintings have confronted the human condition. "This instance of hyperrealism is a performance art. Viewers are deliberately made to notice the amazing amount of time and painstaking effort that went into portraying this. Peterson isn't showing off; he is a radical painter, compelling us with his dedication. The astonishing realism is in the context of reflected light from every other object in the scene. Western artists such as David, da Vinci and Denis Peterson are important in part because of their skill and innovation, but also because they come from cultures that dominate the modern global power scene. Renaissance painters catered to emerging capitalism, the sons in David’s painting Oath of the Horatii symbolize French colonies, and Peterson’s Darfur painting, “Don’t Shed No Tears” provokes America to intervene with her wealth."

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." "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."