Allen Peterson: Galleries of work
Stainless steel. 35 x 65 x 4 inches. Commissioned by Marriott Hotels. The height of each road in this map was chosen according to how long that road has been in place. This makes Peachtree Street the tallest, because it was already there before Atlanta existed, as Peachtree Trail. It was used by the Cherokee and Creek people of Peachtree Village. Later came the railroad lines, still before the city called Atlanta was founded. Downtown grids were next, and more recent roads are flattest.
Stainless steel. 35 x 65 x 4 inches. Commissioned by Marriott Hotels.
cast iron, 38 x 24 x 3½ inches, 2009. This map of downtown Atlanta was created in the adjacent industrial neighborhood of Castleberry Hills. As molten iron was poured into a sand mold, the roads appeared as lines of fiery light, in a timelapse view of how the city grew across the land.
cast aluminum, steel bolts, stainless, stained concrete. 8 foot diameter cast aluminum spheroid, roughly 30 x 35 foot plaza, 2015. This piece was commissioned by Fulton County Arts and Culture for the entry plaza to the Northwest Library at Scotts Crossing. Photo by Bryan Pearson.
I worked with residents of the neighborhoods that are served by the new library – children and adults answered the question "What is important to you about your neighborhood?" in drawings and writings. Some part of each person's response is included in the sculpted metal maps that cover the surfaces of the Globe. Photo by Bryan Pearson.
The industrial look of the sculpture, and its railroad imagery, are a response to the character of the various Northwest Atlanta neighborhoods that this library serves.
This is a closeup of the 30 foot x 30 foot entry plaza to the Northwest Library at Scotts Crossing. These CNC-plasma cut stainless railroad elements are continuations of the metal tracks that crisscross the maps on the surface of the metal globe. They lead off the sculpture, down its concrete base, and across the entryway plaza before converging on the front door to the library, ushering library users in after they have walked across the surface of the artwork plaza.
iron oxide on cast paper. 47 x 24 x ½ inches, 2004. This large-scale cast paper print was made using the components of the Terrain installation. Paper pulp was pressed into every detail of the hexagonal tiles. The resulting paper took its form, contour, and oxide pigmentation from the surface of the hexagons.
iron oxide on cast paper. 93x44x ½ inches. This large-scale cast paper print was made using the components of the Terrain installation. Paper pulp was pressed into every detail of the hexagonal tiles. The resulting paper took its form, contour, and oxide pigmentation from the surface of the hexagons.
Communities are central to my work, both in the creative process and in the themes that I investigate. I enjoy working with communities of people as an integral part of the production of large-scale public art projects. Even in the more private setting of the studio, my work tends to involve the ideas of systems, structure, cooperation, and interdependence that can describe the formation of a community.
Themes of maps and bees in my work are metaphors for the interconnections that make up a community. A map is not a neutral documentation of a location, but forms a portrait of the mapmaker’s priorities through the information about that location that it includes or leaves out. I use map imagery to play with the ideas of how we try to understand our surroundings and our world.
Maps
click on any image to expand
Recent work: Paradigms series
This series of cut paper work is from my exhibition "Hive Life", in the Main Gallery of South River Art Studios, Nov 2021.
It is a glimpse into some of the roles that I have taken on in life.
Like humans, honeybees form mental maps of their surroundings. They can communicate the precise location of external resources to other bees within the hive in a language that is based on dance and rhythm. Bees are a model of community and cooperation that for me suggests the question of how we humans are like bees, and how we are unlike bees. I use materials and processes that relate to the history of industry, such as steel and cast iron, or mold-making and duplicative casting, to relate human effort to the beehive’s iconic industriousness. Individual elements combine to form structures based on interrelationships. The systematization of my own production becomes part of the piece as the rules of a game or a system of work.
Bees
click on any image to expand
honeycomb built by bees onto cast beeswax, wood, varnish, latex paint. dimensions variable, 33 x 16½ x 60 inches. 2012. Thanks to Bob Binnie and the Hambidge Center.
I sculpted the face and cast it in beeswax; a hive of honeybees then added their contribution by building out their own beeswax honeycomb. Thanks to Bob Binnie, and the Hambidge Center.
Cast iron, enamel paint, beeswax, wood, latex paint. Dimensions variable, figures are 6 inches tall. (one hex with figures is 9½ x 13 x 15 inches) 2011-2013. This piece uses toylike figures to ask for a creative reimagining of agriculture on the scale of the individual.
Cast iron, enamel paint, beeswax, wood, latex paint. Dimensions variable, figures are 6 inches tall. (one hex with figures is 9½ x 13 x 15 inches) 2011-2013. This piece uses toylike figures to ask for a creative reimagining of agriculture on the scale of the individual.
Detail, during a Visiting Artist presentation at Turning Sun School. Cast iron, enamel paint, beeswax, wood, latex paint. Dimensions variable, figures are 6 inches tall. (one hex with figures is 9½ x 13 x 15 inches) 2011-2013. This piece uses toylike figures to ask for a creative reimagining of agriculture on the scale of the individual.
Latex paint, wood, paper, fabricated steel. 48x12¾x8 inches. A 1:6 scale concept model of an alternative to the beekeeper’s standard hive. It elevates the hive to a height of 15 to 20 feet above ground, as a feral colony of bees might choose for its habitat in nature, making it possible to establish a hive of bees in a location such as an urban park or nature trail. Elevating the hive allows people to walk close by the site without alarming the bees (or themselves). 2010
iron oxide and conté on cast paper. 23x17x¼ inches.
iron oxide and conté on cast paper. 23x17x¼ inches
Performance still. These bird-sized iron bee forms were “flown” like puppets by dancers to “pollinate” floral torches with the heat of red-hot metal. The choreography refers to the motion-based language that bees use to direct hive members to external resources.
LED, steel, plexiglass. 48 x 24 x 3½ inches. 2019.
Swarm Memorial (installation of metal honeybees): steel, enamel, woven wire. Dimensions vary, approx. 10’2” tall x 10 feet x 10 feet. 2019. Biodiversity (painting): acrylic latex and spray acrylic on unstretched canvas. 5 feet x 12 feet. 2019.
Spray acrylic, latex, on interior wall
Cast iron (bees and hexagons), steel. Completed 2022. 12.5 x 4 x 4 feet.
Cast iron (bees and hexagons), steel, completed 2022. Detail -- bees have approx. 10 inch wingspan.
2016-18. cast iron, painted steel. 13x14x16 inches. From 2016 performance art piece Crosspollination at Sculpture Fields
Beyond the bees’ unified work within the hive, for various reasons honeybees have become interdependent with humans. In 2007, the emergence of Colony Collapse Disorder gave more urgency to the topic of honeybees. The well-being of honeybees has become a barometer for the environmental health of the planet and the ways in which humans continually impact the global ecosystem. The relatively abstract ideas of system and community in my work sharpened into more specific questions of interdependence, and the problem of pollinating the crops that humans depend on for food. I started to raise honeybee hives as a beekeeper, to gain the knowledge of bees provided only by firsthand experience. I embraced using beekeeping as a sculptural medium, entering the dialogue between the various artists who collaborate with bees.
The work, whether focused on maps or bees or both as subject matter, is an investigation of the nature of the systems and structure that can make a hive-like synergy possible in our own human communities. I see my work as a continued questioning of how well we understand ourselves, each other, and our world. My hope is that the viewer may see the possibilities at play within the structure of the work and accompany me on a journey of inquiry.
flora / fauna gallery:
The "flora/fauna" series is inspired by recent collaborations with my friend and local naturalist Charlie Muise. Conversations with Charlie directed my research into various species of wildlife that live in Georgia. My love of nature and fascination with natural processes fueled a deepening of my knowledge of local ecosystems and species that make this land their habitat. That knowledge informed the metalwork that I made for Charlie, and the resulting imagery has continued to steer a course for the work in this series of artwork.
This work was a pop-up exhibition held at Wonderspace Atlanta during November and December 2017. I designed each of the works in this series digitally, and realized them with a CNC plasma cutter in editions of five.
Click here to contact me about purchases.
click on any image to expand
2018. Digital design, welded steel. 22 x 24 x 3 inches. Edition of 5 2-5 are available. $1420.
Allen Peterson, 2017. digital design, welded steel, enamel stain. 13.25 x 12 inches Edition of 5 3 through 5 are available
2020, Allen Peterson. Digital design, enamel-stained steel, edition of 30. 5.25 x 6.75 inches. Commissioned by the Nature Conservancy of Georgia.
Allen Peterson, 2018. digital design, welded steel, enamel stain. 13.25 x 12 inches Edition of 5
2020, Commissioned by the Nature Conservancy of Georgia. Digital design, enamel-stained steel. 13.25 x 12 x 2 inches.
Allen Peterson, 2017. digital design, welded steel, enamel stain. 13.25 x 12 inches Edition of 5
Allen Peterson, 2017. digital design, welded steel, enamel stain. 13.25 x 12 inches Edition of 5 All sold
"Eastern Diamondback in Rattlesnake Master" Allen Peterson, 2017. digital design, welded steel, enamel stain. 24 x 12 inches Edition of 5 3, 4, and 5 are available $920 as shadowbox (pictured)
Allen Peterson. digital design, welded steel, enamel paint. sizes vary from approximately 2 inches to 8 inches
Gallery: public practice
click on any image to expand
2019-20. Steel, PVC, precision parts, music. A giant music box made by Allen Peterson plays a musical composition written by Okorie Johnson.
Two musical performers, bicycle, wood, steel, wheels, sound. A bicycle cart as a tiny stage for musical performance, rolling on the Atlanta BeltLine bicycle trails! It takes two musicians to operate, alternating between pedaling the bike and playing onstage – equal time is the deal. This project was ongoing from August - November 2014.
A volunteer performance, playing the Plectracycle while roaming the grounds of the Goat Farm art center in midtown Atlanta during the 2012 benefit for the Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts and Sciences.
Site specific installation (concrete park bench), on location of former municipal swimming pool, York, Alabama. 1.5 x2x9 feet. This public work is in Cherokee Park, the main public park in the town of York, Alabama. It marks the site of the former municipal swimming pool, which was unfairly closed by the town’s white officials in 1971 to prevent the facility’s integration.
Cast iron on concrete slab; site-specific installation. 12x 25 feet. This public work is in Cherokee Park, the main public park in the town of York, Alabama. It marks the site of the former municipal swimming pool, which was unfairly closed by the town’s white officials in 1971 to prevent the facility’s integration. Its companion piece, Diving Board, visible to the right, is a functional park bench as well as another site marker.
Peterson worked with neighbors from the surrounding communities that are served by the library to collect the residents’ answers in drawings and words to the question, “What is most important to you about your neighborhood?” Some part of each response was included on the surface details of the sculpture, so that it was the neighbors themselves who got to choose what would be featured on the map of the area.
Over 150 local neighbors, including these youth at the Bankhead Library, provided their own drawings and words to answer the question, “What is most important to you about your neighborhood?” Some part of each response was included on the surface details of the sculpture, so that it was the residents themselves who got to choose what would be featured on the map of the area.
Allen Peterson worked some part of each person's response into the surface details of the sculpture, so that it was the residents themselves who got to choose what would be featured on the map of the area. Visible here on the finished aluminum sculpture are an apartment complex, two elementary schools, and a fish pond, all as drawn by local neighbors.