Objects with Ray Colleran and Oliver Peterson
OBJECTS: A Two-Man Show with Ray Colleran and Oliver Peterson opens this weekend at Ashawagh Hall in Springs.The show marks Colleran and Peterson’s second two-man exhibition at the longstanding community center.
The friends and frequent artistic cohorts introduced their work to the East End in their first show, Burlap and Book Pages, in 2006, and they have since shared two studios and frequently consult one another about the progress of their individual work. Both artists have been named Long Island Pulse magazine Artist VIPs (in 2008 and 2012) and they have exhibited around the East End and elsewhere, separately and together, in various group shows.
Objects examines and celebrates these artists’ love of art as fetish—the inanimate and tangible manifestation of the visceral, intellectual and intangible. The show will include paintings from the past five years and some sculptural works by Colleran and Peterson, as well as a few surprises, including an “Art Automat” and a selection of small Artist Trading Cards (ATCs), so collectors and admirers can bring something home, no matter what their budget.
“They are a physical manifestation of concept, process, action, emotion. They represent and record moments in time on a different level than photographs, words or even video. These pieces of art, all art objects, are so much greater than the sum of their parts,” Peterson said describing the show. “Paint, glue, fabric, charcoal, little bits of paper and trash—whatever an artist chooses to use—are incidental, but when combined just right, these things become conduits of emotion that can offend or inspire, or connect people to the artists who made them.”
Oliver Peterson is mixed media artist who works with collage and paint to create thoughtful compositions that often play with juxtaposition and narrative. His work can be cryptic, full of personal iconography and frequent references to pop culture, history, anatomy and the occult.
Ray Colleran employs a wide breadth of materials and unique approach to his complex mixed media work. Starting with vintage book pages, the artist uses scrawled text, doodles and splashes of color to expose a subconscious dialogue, fraught with his hopes, fears and obsessions, as well as an ongoing commentary about war, love, madness and the American id.
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