Peter Barelkowski

Peter Barelkowski’s paintings are situated in cloudlike non-spaces, where figures and objects float like ideas in fields of colour. These spaces become the sites for events which are outside of time, events that are simultaneously trauma and aftermath, story and memory. The traumas that appear to be endlessly replayed are both historical and existential, events that seem gritty and real but situated in spaces that are dreamlike and intangible. At times these spaces are granted the primordial distinction between land and sky in its rawest form – a cleaving hori-zon – creating the realms of the upper and lower. At other times the severing of the space comes in the form of a box, which separates the inside from the outside. It either case the separations create a power dynamic between two fields. The first occupied by looming over-seers: uniformed authorities, towering matrons, and giant birds. The latter is the realm of the masses huddled in cells and cellars, and the mundane trappings of the everyday: bottles, and chairs. These spaces, however, are not without hope. A ladder appears in nearly every work.This recurring motif offers the promise of escape through ascension.

1972 - 77 University, M.A.
1979 - 81 Goldsmiths College
1985 - 88 Ontario College of Art

Artist Project 2016, Contemporary Art Fair, Toronto, February 18-21, 2016
The Art Wynwood , Contemporary Art Fair, Miami, FL, represented by Spence Gallery, Feb 11 - 15, 2016
Art Fair Battersea, London UK, represented by Spence Gallery, October 21 - 25, 2015
INSOMNIA / Nuit Blanche, group show, Red Head Gallery, Toronto, September 30 - October 4, 2015
Art Fair New York, represented by Spence Gallery, September 10 - 12, 2015
2015 TOAE, Toronto, September 18 - 20, 2015
Papermill Gallery, Todmorden Mills Museum, Toronto, The 2015 Ontario Society of Artists Members' Exhibition, Aug 19 - Sept 13, 2015, Best in Show Award
Art Hamptons, NY, Contemporary Art Fair, represented by Gallery 133, July 2 - 5, 2015
Colour, Members Exhibition, Propeller Gallery, June 24 - July 5, 2015
Arta Gallery, Group Show, June 19 - July 7, 2015
Arta Gallery, Distillery Historic District, Toronto, 4 Expression, Four Artists Show, March 4 - 17, 2015
Artist Project 2015, Juried Contemporary Art Fair, Toronto, February 19 - 22, 2015
Collective Memories, Solo Exhibition, Miles Nadal JCC Gallery, Toronto, November 6 - 30, 2014
Migration, Nuit Blanche 2014, Propeller Gallery, Toronto, September 24 - October 23, 2014
Shared Places, Shared Spaces, Propel...