Peter Black - artist's bio
For over 30 years Peter Black's photographs have been recognised in significant public exhibitions and publications.
Selected career highlights include:
- being the first New Zealand photographer to have a solo show at the National Art Gallery - Fifty Photographs, 1980
- the opening show of the McNamara Gallery, Wanganui - Moving Pictures, 2002
- a survey show devoted to his work, City Gallery, Wellington - Real Fiction, 2003.
The accompanying catalogue featured leading art and literary writers responding to his work
- being featured in the major publications - Contemporary New Zealand Photographers, Mountain View Publishing, 2005, and
Into the Light, Craig Potton, 2006
- a joint exhibition with a Robert Mapplethorpe portfolio at Te Papa - Flowers and Foliage, 2007
His work is in most major public collections in New Zealand, and many significant private collections.
Peter's photographs include iconic and innovative series such as Moving Pictures which catches the essence of
'Rogernomics' New Zealand in images taken from a car. Autoportraits 1986 and the 2007 Public series
are powerful intimate portraits of strangers in the street. The boundaries between photography,
text and cinema are other key concerns in Peter's body of work.
For thirty years Peter developed his own black and white film and made his own silver gelatin prints.
A limited number of vintage prints from key bodies of work are still available.
Peter now works in colour with series such as Outskirts which explores the landscape of manufacturing
and industry. New Colour is an ongoing series which addresses New Zealand's prospects in the city,
country and at the sea shore. Peter has printed these works himself on archival photo rag paper using
Epson K3 Ultrachrome inks.
Limited edition artist's albums of both these series are also available.
'Peter's photographs insist on a close proximity between 'fictional' and 'real'. He is concerned with the capability of
real life to yield metaphors, to expand and contract, to grow. Pictorial analogies abound in the work: while Peter's photographs
are images of the real world, they are also a compendium of selected fictions. Together they make a plotless narrative which stretches
over nearly 30 years.'- Greg O'Brien, City Gallery,
Real Fiction (Sport 30), 2003, Fergus Barrowman.
Full Greg O'Brien text available at: New Zealand Electronic Text Centre - Sport #30
Contact:
Street and postal address:
Photospace gallery
1st floor, 37 Courtenay Place
Wellington 6011
New Zealand
ph/fax: 64-4-382 9502
Mobile: 027 444 3899
Director: James Gilberd
j.gilberd at xtra.co.nz
All material ©Peter Black and Photospace Gallery
Outskirts
New Colour
Public
