Peter Powning

"Art comes from a place that resists description. My preoccupation as an artist is close observation of the world, a direct connection with unsought, pre-thought imagery. Almost anything can ignite a creative reaction. This initial raw experience is inevitably filtered by my conscious ideas, although at heart the work is intuitive. Layers of meaning reveal themselves, both as I work, and after the piece is finished. The process shapes and alters what I intended, until the piece, in a way, makes itself, becomes its own. My work connects with other people in ways I can't predict, often don't intend, and for reasons that sometimes elude me.

I often work in series. Themes develop. This show has a number of threads. Much of my work is concerned with humans as part of nature. Our brief tenure as a species on this small spinning rock has wrought enormous changes to our environment. While I don't address this life-long concern in my art in a literal way, I think the work reflects the tenuous nature of the human experience -- how the new becomes ancient. How the whole becomes fragmented. How the once understood and familiar become obscure."

Bivalent Self - 2007
glass, copper, steel and stone, 26 in H x 16.5 in W