Thursday, January 20, 2011

Peter Precourt - Katrina Chronicles: Volumes I & II

Today I attended Peter's Closing Artist Talk session for his Katrina Chronicles exhibit at the Danforth Gallery located in Jewett Hall on the UMA campus.  This exhibit is about Peter's recollections of and reflections on the events leading up to his experience with Hurricane Katrina while living in Coastal Mississippi. 


The event was informal and small with about twenty people attending (Give or Take). Peter led the session more as a informal discussion, with him centered and guests surrounded, in the recessed area of the gallery.  During the hour, Peter talked of the exhibit and some of the events that had transpired.  Meeting Peter in person connects the comical satire in his work with his personality and in turn gives you a better appreciation of it as a whole.  Thirty or so minutes in, Peter opened the floor for questions of which I personally asked two.  

The first asked him if he could change anything about his exhibit what would it be?  After a short pause, Peter begin to refer to disliking the magnetic tags and then changed to discussing the size of his studio. Apparently his studio is small and so, when creating it, he used small thumbnails of the frames to try and get an idea of how things would flow in the actual presentation.  He finished by saying that overall he was quite happy with the way work was put together.

Towards the end I asked a second question. Stating that Jane (his wife) seemed to be a big influence on his work, did she ever disagree with any of the story line art and not allow him to use it?  Peter smiled this time with a little chuckle. He commented on the frame of the two fighting and sleeping back to back. He suggested that issues arose about that and carefully ended with a compliment to his wife about her intricate role in putting the work all together. He believes his wife to truly be a heroin in the whole project.

Over all I liked the work and was entertained by the story. 
I recommend viewing this exhibit. For more info view the links below.


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