I marvel at the fundamental forces of nature, the laws that determine the structure and behavior of matter, the ways and means of how the world looks the way it does. This interest in the science of the natural world led me to read deeply into the physics behind mechanisms of pattern generation. My painting language is based in these wonderments of systems and outcomes and the mathematics that describe them. — Peter Stephens
Peter Stephens’ paintings translate scientific inspirations into a visual, multilayered landscape wherein layer after layer gradients of reality are enfolded onto one another. Deeply impacted by and inspired by physics and the natural world, Stephens explores color relationships and interactions within given parameters. Similar to numbers in equations, the quantities, sequences, repetitions, and rhythms all contribute to a rich optical blend of color combinations. A given set of colors results in an exponential number of different perceptions.
The evolution of Stephens' work is ongoing---it changes and evolves as each new mutation moves the morphology forward. His paintings are not simply illustrations of specific laws that shape the universe and ourselves but the artist’s answer to their implicit resonances. Along with these pure abstractions of form and color come cultural references to histories of art and design with immediate associations to sumptuous textiles and complex architectural mosaics.
Peter Stephens has shown his work across the US and Canada for over thirty years. He has had extensive exposure at museums including: Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY, Burchfield-Penney Art Center, Buffalo, NY, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY, Castellani Art Museum, Niagara Falls, NY, New York State Historical Assn. Fenimore Museum, Cooperstown, NY. Stephens attended Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY 1976-1978 and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, where he received his BFA in 1981.