Jason Peters
Fascinated by the destabilization of perception, artist Jason Peters creates illusory spaces and alternative realities through his work. Intentionally designed to trigger a cathartic sense of the sublime in his viewers, the artist amasses vast quantities of discarded objects from everyday life that he then reconfigures in surprisingly unexpected ways. The results lift these “societal casts-offs” – including contractors’ buckets and metal chair frames – beyond the bounds of ordinary physical existence and invite the viewer to see beauty where before there was refuse, to experience flux where before there was stasis, to experience a focused calm where before there was alarm.
Jason Peters’s creative process is driven by a desire to create “visual happenings,” which are intended to provoke strong responses in his viewers. What that response might be, however, is entirely subjective and comes from within. Thus, the artist is more concerned with providing evocative prompts that jolt his audiences into active reflection and spatial engagement than with catalyzing specific emotions or associative thoughts. Complementing the formal rigidity of Peters’s work – which are geometric if not symmetrical – then, is interpretive space, in which the viewer can be alone with his or her thoughts. Working with objects that can be massed in multiples, the artist takes his cues from his materials, which in the past have included crutches, chairs, cots, railroad ties, light bulbs, and crutches. By interrogating these elements – asking, a the artist has stated, “What can the objects do? Or what can I make them do?” –Peters creates installations that transform the functional identity of ordinary objects and elevates them to the level of art.
Peters’s work builds on the tradition of “readymades,” which dates the early 20th century when French artist Marcel Duchamp took the art world by storm with works such as his controversial Fountain (1917); a urinal he transformed into a work of art by repositioning, signing, and titling it. Assemblage (in which found objects are combined to create new and expressive art works) is also an inspiration, as is the work of artists such as Dan Flavin, whose light sculptures deeply resonate in Peters’s own work. Even more than the earlier generations of artists working with objects that were prosaic, readily available, and produced in mass quantities, the sculptor’s pieces subtly evoke considerations of consumer culture, globalism, waste, and environmental degradation. Thus Peters absorbs these divergent sources in creating a voice that is not only uniquely his own but also wholly of our time.
Born in the United States in 1977, Jason Peters was raised in Munich, Germany. Peters moved with his family to New Mexico in 1995 before attending the Maryland Institute, College of Art, Baltimore, where he earned his BFA (cum laude) in 1999.
Now based in Brooklyn, Peters’s installations have been featured in numerous solo shows, including Franconia Sculpture Park, (Franconia, MN 2020), Art Prize, (Kendall Collage or Art and Design MI, 2018), Carved Space, (The Museum of Architecture Augsburg, Germany 2016), Plexus, (Dashboard, Atlanta, Georgia 2014), Less Than More Than (Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton, NJ, 2013), L.A. Deluxe (Robert Berman Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, 2012), Reverse Polarities (Project Room, Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, NY, 2011), Anti.Gravity.Material.Light (Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Oklahoma City, OK, 2010), Now you see it Now you don't (Time Square Alliance, New York, NY, 2009), Open And as Pointed as Possible (Salina Arts Center, Salina, KS, 2009), and No more / No less (White Flag Projects, St. Louis, MO, 2008).
Group shows include Prism (Downtown Atlanta GA 2019), Extrospection and BKLYN Immersive, Spring Break art show 2018, MICA THEN / NOW (Ethan Cohen Fine Atrs, Kunstahalle Beacon, Beacon NY, 2013), Designed to Win (Kendall College of Art, Grand Rapids, MI, 2013), Bronx Calling (2 nd A.I.M. Biennial, Bronx Museum of Art, NY, 2013), See the Pyramids along the Nile (Englishkills Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, 2013), and Thank you curated by Adam Parker smith (LuMagnus Gallery, New York, NY, 2013). Light Project Pulitzer Art Foundation MO 2009
In addition Peters has received commissions and awards from Proposals For All, Neskowin OR, Citi Bank, Manhattan New York, NY, Summit Publiv\c Art series, Summit NJ, Museum of Modern Art, Tuson, AZ, Nuit Blanche Toronto, Canada, The Drake Hotel Toronto, Canada, Grounds for Sculpture (Hamilton, NJ), See | Me Gallery (Long Island City, NY), InLight Richmond Green Art Award (Rahway, NJ), See Gallery (L.I.C., NY), The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh, PA), The Friends Seminary (New York, NY), Time Square Alliance (New York, NY), and Salina Arts Center/Smokey Hill River Festival (Salina, KS).
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