PETER BUNTING

There are two periods of Peter Bunting work represented here, the work of the 1990’s, which he called “Magic Realism”, a series of allegorical paintings and the more recent work of a landscape series taken from experiences on a holiday to the Ardèche in France.

In writing about his allegorical work, first shown at Sandra Higgins Fine Arts in Mayfair in 1990, Peter wrote:

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

Although I have always painted, and became deeply involved in Surrealism as a teenager, my interests drove me to study Philosophy at University. It was through the assimilation of this discipline and of its ideas that subsequently my work in painting reorientated itself. After lengthy study of natural form and phenomena the work took the directions which I have been pursuing for some seven or so years. The principal themes here are those dealing with the human being and its relationship to the world, the methods by which this relationship is established, (hence a religious of philosophic flavour) and the interconnections physical and psychical between the body and the natural world.

Rather than explore these themes in an abstract fashion I have chosen rather to particularise experiences. (as happens in dream states) The influences upon the work come from a variety of sources, some Oriental, also sources closer to home, especially early Renaissance Siennese and Florentine visualisations. A debt is still owed to the European Surrealists, but also to Picasso whose curiosity with regard to the condition of being human was endless. It is not easy to summarise a position but perhaps these few lines serve to cast some light upon the work.

More recently two elements have made their significance clear. I refer to the polarities of Sky (Clouds) and Earth (Rock, Caves) and of flying upwards of digging downwards. An immersion in matter (as if incarnation) and a freedom from it (as in imagination).

Peter Bunting, 1990

BIOGRAPHY

Peter Bunting was born in 1947 and spent the first 20 years of his life in Switzerland, Turkey, Scotland and Peru. In 1962 he came across the work of Yves Tanguy and began a long involvement with Surrealist art and ideas. In 1968-69 he travelled in the Middle East, India and West Africa.

He graduated with a B.A. (hons) and M.A. in Philosophy from Cambridge University and subsequently with a Dip.A.D. from the Byam Shaw School of Art London. Between 1975 and 1978 he lived and worked on the North Yorkshire coast producing drawings and paintings dealing with growth and natural forces.

Since 1979 he has lived and worked in East London, between 1980 and 1994 he produced allegorical paintings (many represented here) depicting the Human subject and its interaction with the world in its material and spiritual aspects. Specifically this interaction was dealt with through visual metaphors, some of these being:

The body, its workings and its organs of sense.
Dreams and fantasies.
The instruments of scientific investigation (telescopes and
microscopes).
Enclosed inhabited spaces (The house or the cave) and their
relation to the outer world.

During that time he taught at the Newport College of Art.

EXHIBITIONS

1981
Exhibition of Allegorical Paintings, The Showroom, London
Whitechapel Open
Two-person exhibition, New Style Gallery, London

1982
Whitechapel Open
Group show, New Style Gallery, London
Hayward Annual
Sainsbury’s Images for Today, The Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield

1983
Whitechapel Open
Group show, The Turner House, Penarth
Group show, Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool
Group show, Victoria Art Gallery, Bath

1984
T.S.W.A. (National Art Exhibition) Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery
Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol
Newlyn Art Gallery, Penzance
Chapter Gallery, Cardiff

1985
Plymouth Arts Centre
Group show, Third Eye Centre, Glasgow
Group show, Camden Arts Centre, London
Interim Art, London

1986
Kettles Yard, Cambridge
“Contrariwise, Surrealism in Britain, 1930-1986”, Glynn Vivian Gallery
Touring Exhibition, Swansea

1987
Solo exhibition, “Life on Earth”, Spellmans Gallery, York
Group show, Victoria Gallery, Bath
Group show, Mostyn Art Gallery, Llandudno
Group show, Polytechnic Gallery, Newcastle

1988
“Works for Shelves”, Kettles Yard, Cambridge
“Monumental Works”, The Crypt. St. George’s Church, Bloomsbury
“A Green Thought in a Green Place”, Richard Pomeroy Gallery, London

1989
“Fragments of False Houses”, Pomeroy Purdy Gallery, London
“Drawing Lines”, Mertz Contemporary Art, London
Solo exhibition of allegorical paintings, Pomeroy Purdy Gallery, London

1990
Solo exhibition, Sandra Higgins Fine Arts, London
Olympia Art Fair, London with Sandra Higgins Fine Arts

1992
“Four Artists”, Benjamin Rhodes Gallery, London

1993
7th International Exhibition of Contemporary Art, Libramont, Belgium
“The Discerning Eye”, Mall Galleries, London

Between 1994 and 1997, Peter did not exhibit his work but rather gave up his teaching commitments and embarked on research took him into “unfamiliar” territory. He began to use a greater reliance on free association, which had characterised Surrealist artistic practice, and the absence of recognisable subject matter became characteristic of this new work although the same underlying preoccupation with organic structures still underlies it.

From 1998 to 2003 Peter has exhibited this new phase of his work regularly with England and Co.,Gallery London.