Peter Michael

1972
Living and working in East London

I do not approach a piece of work with a fixed narrative in mind. I would like people to view my work in the same way as they may listen to a piece of instrumental music; using the right hand side of the brain, rather than the left. For this reason, my paintings are kept free from complicated visual stimuli; normally fairly large in size, with single, solitary figures, that are hue and tone mediated. This also enables the work to be viewed as an immediate whole, rather than as a collection of interlinked parts. Each painting is an individual piece and has no relation to any of my other paintings. I try to keep textual explanations away from my work, as I believe this creates a ceiling and limits the meaning of the work for the viewer; as a result non of my work is titled.



Working with the human figure allows for infinite expression. At present I am not trying to portray the subject in relation to the world, but as a solitary form in space. Using a blank, vacuum-like background emphasises our distance from the subject and their distance from us.