Weltlandschaft

New York-based Australian artist Peter Daverington returns to Melbourne this November with an exhibition of new paintings, titled Weltlandschaft. Opening drinks will be held on Thursday 10 November, 6-8pm.
A contemporary painter of rare technical distinction, Peter Daverington has garnered significant recognition for his unparalleled ability to mix pictorial styles and art genres. In his latest exhibition at ARC ONE Gallery, Daverington explores the landscape painting tradition of 16th century Northern Europe with a mélange of fantastical interjections. Against a backdrop of rolling valleys, cavernous skies and trees, seemingly- endless paths lead to covert horizons, rivers stream down floating geometric planes, and mountainous forms are peppered with candy-stripes, flaming tops and carnivalesque motifs. Moving away from linear perspective in favour of more isometric projections of space, Daverington creates captivating pictorial ‘maps’ that encourage the viewer to travel the canvas at free will.
The exhibition’s German title, Weltlandschaft, meaning
‘world landscape’, refers to a period in Netherlandish
painting of imaginary panoramic landscapes depicted
from encompassing, elevated viewpoints. Inspired
by the work of Joachim Patinir and Hieronymous
Bosch, Daverington fuses these compositional
techniques with his own unique aesthetic to create
truly contemporary and surreal interpretations of the
genre. In these landscapes early Renaissance, geometric hard-edge painting and even 1980s videogame design find an unlikely harmony.
With several of the works’ titles referencing Sumerian mythology, Daverington seeks out points of connection across periods and cultures, and weaves a mythical narrative that reflects his own longstanding interest in ancient history, Mesopotamia and painting traditions beyond the West. In Weltlandschaft, Peter Daverington presents fantastic topologies of the imagination; he transforms us into armchair travellers, contemplating bygone and imagined vistas made mystic in a playful engagement of the unknown.
Peter Daverington (b. 1974, Melbourne, Australia) has held more than a dozen solo exhibitions since 2004. In 2006 Daverington completed an MFA at the Victorian College of the Arts where he received the prestigious KPMG tutorship to teach in the painting department. He has received two Australia Council for the Arts project grants, in 2005 and 2010 respectively; the John Coburn Emerging Artist Award in 2008, and the Rupert Bunny Fellowship in 2011 for his first moving image work. Solo exhibitions include Iconophilia, The Lodge Gallery, New York (2015); Lacuna, Chasm Gallery, Brooklyn, New York (2015); and Because Painting (2014), From the Future with Love (2013), and Poiesis (2011), all ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne. Recent group exhibitions include Divine Abstraction, Justin Art House Museum, Melbourne (2016); Lurid Beauty: Australian Surrealism and its Echoes, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2015-16); The Garden, QUT Museum, Brisbane (2015); 100 Little Deaths, Bravin Lee Programs, New York (2013); Peekskill Project V, Hudson Valley Centre of Contemporary Art, Peekskill, New York (2013); and Currents 2012 & 2014 – Santa Fe International New Media Festival, Santa Fe, New Mexico. He has been shortlisted for numerous prestigious art awards including the Archibald Prize and the Sulman Prize (2014 and 2013); the Fleurieu Art Prize, (2013); and the Geelong Contemporary Art Prize (2012). His work has been acquired by several major collections, including Artbank, KPMG, MacQuarie Bank, Geelong Gallery and Gippsland Art Gallery, as well as private collections throughout Australia and abroad. Peter Daverington lives and works in New York.