Approved: 08.03.2018

Peter Driver

Artist, Curator, Event organiser, Writer

Approved: 08.03.2018

I make things, or make things happen, using printmaking, painting, walking, birding, collaboration and other procedures.  Through this diverse output I attempt to integrate art and life, creating new knowledge through field and studio research. The work includes presenting my experiences of long-distance walks, exposing the ambiguities of text in a woodcut print, and wrestling many variables into abstract paintings: a variety of responses to the wonder and brokenness of living in the world.

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  • Location: READING, South East
 
 
 

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      Artist Statement

      I make things, or make things happen, using printmaking, painting, walking, birding, collaboration and other procedures.  Through this diverse output I attempt to integrate art and life, creating new knowledge through field and studio research. The work includes presenting my experiences of long-distance walks, exposing the ambiguities of text in a woodcut print, and wrestling many variables into abstract paintings: a variety of responses to the wonder and brokenness of living in the world.

      My woodcuts might set a short text within a matrix formed of colour-play, geometric sequence, or the natural patterns found within the grain of the woodblocks.  The texts often present a phrase intended to expose a diversity of interpretations and meanings.

      The paintings are always abstract and mostly about painting. Colour-interactions, shape, tone, mark and structure combine in a complex set of relationships, over time. Source material can come from a wide range of stimuli: pop music, memory, the natural world, or field research.  Each painting is a struggle between conflicting forces. Paint gets added, pondered, scrapped-off, covered over… it is an iterative, anxious performance. If there are rules, I break them.

      As an organiser and collaborator, I also achieve my objectives by making opportunities for others, particularly for young and emerging artists.

      CV & Education

      PETER DRIVER CV

      EDUCATION:

      MA Fine Art, 2014-15: Winchester School of Art  

      BA (Hons) Fine Art, 2011-14: Winchester School of Art

      Foundation in Art and Design, 1981-82: Cambridge School of Art 

      SOLO/DUO EXHIBITIONS/PROJECTS:

      2024 Georgics: visual poems on farming (with Ingrid Jensen), Leominster Information Centre

      2018  A Walk For Stanley - solo walking project, Instagram #aWalkForStanley

      2017 Imagined Futures - K6 Gallery, Southampton

      2017 For Such a Time as This - Brock Keep, Reading

      2016  A Gaol Ballad and Other Assorted Love Songs - (with Amy-Rose Holland), Brock Keep, Reading

      2016 WordUp! - (with Robert Fitzmaurice), multiple venues across Reading and online.

      2015  ecologies of optimism and dissent, Jam Factory, Oxford

      2014  I'm glad you're alive! - (with Lydia Heath), Brock Keep, Reading

      2013  Peter Driver: Woodcuts - Winchester Discovery Centre

      PUBLICATIONS

      Forthcoming: Widdershins Walk, 2025 (with Geoff Sawers) publisher: Peculiarity Press

      A Walk For Stanley, 2019, (published by Peculiarity Press) https://peculiaritypress.com/awalkforstanley

      CURATION/ORGANISING

      Boiling Point Artist Collective: practice post art school, 571 Gallery Reading, 2023

      Beyond otherness,  571 Gallery Reading, 2021 

      Fire & Water, 2016  OHOS, Reading

      Accretion (with Kirsty Smith and Nicky Bell), 2015, Brightbyte Studio, Southampton

      Print as a Verb (with Chris Mercier), 2015, OHOS, Reading

      Desire Lines, 2015, OHOS, Reading

      Recent History (with Elly Langlois), 2014, Brooks Centre, Winchester

      GROUP EXHIBITIONS/PROJECTS:

      2024

      LICK, Safehouse 1, London

      Condition Blah, Blah, Blah, Turbine House, Reading

      2023

      Do Not Swallow, Safehouse 1&2, London

      Five Years Time, Alfred Arcade, Southampton

      Where The Two Worlds Meet, Biscuit Factory, Reading

      2022

      Inbetweeners, Chapel Arts Andover

      Artists for Ukraine, 571 Gallery, Reading

      Newsprint Open 2022, Three Works, Scarborough

      2021

      Relational Beings, Chapel Arts Andover
      Newsprint Open 2021, Three Works, Scarborough

      2020

      Saturated Space, Sandham Memorial Chapel

      2019

      'silence | absence' - Broad Street Mall, Reading (curated by Richard Bentley)

      'Let Us Dissent' - SPUDworks, Sway (CAS associate artists' group show)

      'The Arborealists and Guests - The Art of Trees'', Turbine House, Reading

      'Triangulations', Brock Keep, Reading (with Sarah Britten-Jones and Robert Fitzmaurice)

      'In The Round', Chapel Arts, Andover (CAS associate artists' group show)

      2018

      Block_Chain>The Power of Two - online residency at 

      block-chain.chapelartsstudios.co.uk (Block_1)

      2017

      'ChaosContrastsChange', Brock Keep, Reading (studio group show curated by Janet Curley Cannon)

      'Footprints', Winchester School of Art, (group show curated by Tessa Atton for the University of Southampton Festival of Doctoral Research)

      2015

      '10Days Winchester: CHALK', Winchester Gallery, Winchester

      'The Laboratory of Dissent', Winchester Gallery, Winchester

      'Meeting Point', Crypt Gallery, London (Blue Curry, Mia Taylor, Ian Dawson, Nicola Thomas, Stephen Cooper, Amy-Rose Holland, Kirsty Smith, et al.)

      2014

      Platform Graduate Award 2014, (selected show) Aspex Gallery Portsmouth

      Someone & Something, Aspex Gallery Portsmouth

      'Tabula Rasa' - The Bargehouse, London

      Insight 2014, New Greenham Arts, Newbury

      Transmediale Festival, Berlin (group installation)

      2013

      'Raison D'etre' - Mottisfont National Trust, Hants

      Outlook Changeable - OHOS group exhibition, Brock Keep, Reading

      Searching, always - arjeea21 group exhibition, Gallery 49, Bracknell

      2012

      Echo - arjeea21 group exhibition, Brock Keep, Reading

       

      TEACHING/TUTORING

      Winchester School of Art - Teaching Fellow in Fine Art 2016-22

      Open Hand OpenSpace, Reading - Printmaking tutor 

      COLLABORATIVE PERFORMANCES:

      Andover March for Optimism, Andover Town Centre, 2015

      'Encounters, Andover': production and free distribution of 200 woodcut prints inspired by Encounters Shop, Andover High Street, 2014

      'March for Optimism', Winchester City Centre, 2014

      Art&Ride, 24 hour project as part of 10Days, Winchester bus routes, 2013 (with Public Works)

      Space for Peace, Winchester Cathedral 2013, (curated by Kimvi Nguyen)

      RESIDENCIES

      In-Situ, micro residency at Brierfield Mill, Lancashire, 2021

      Block_Chain>The Power of Two, online residency at block-chain.chapelartsstudios.co.uk, 2018

      Basing House archaeological dig, Hampshire: artist in residence, July-August 2013

      AWARDS

      Arts Council England project grant 2023 - for Boiling Point Artist Collective

      Arts Council England - Developing Your Creative Practice full grant 2021.

      Arts Council England project grant 2021 - (on behalf of OHOS) for Beyond Otherness

      Arts Council England grant for the arts to develop March for Optimism, Andover, 2015 (as part of Chapel Arts Studios pop-up project 'The Bureau of Exchange')