| Peter Hobden - Artist Statement
The power of painting to express emotions on canvas.
Creating paintings enriches my experience of life. It allows me to take reality and color it with my emotions, with my experience of life. I am driven to express what I see and transform it into something which awakens an inner excitement in me – the magic that is buried in everyday life, when you become silent and just watch.
I am touched by the wonder of light, how it transforms places when it is strong or it is soft, when it is declining or it is emerging, when it awakens shadows harmonizing or colliding, when it reflects in windows or on rainy streets or when it glows from inside houses in the evening or at night.
I am stirred by how people fit in to scenes and how their attitudes express their mood and their humanity.
My paintings are full of light and the nearness of life, suspended in the moment. |
| Beginning a new painting always fill me with a sense of excitement. At the outset everything seems possible. I feel a great power. I know what I want to paint. I have a sense of what I want to convey but I do not know how it will emerge.
A painting is almost a living thing as it evolves. I negotiate with it, seeking what it needs to move towards my vision, and there comes a point where it takes on a reality of its own, and the painting is ready to exist on its own, independently of me. |
| I paint street scenes I am intimate with or places I have seen and been touched by.
I paint portraits of people with whom I feel a connection to express aspects of their inner nature, an emblematic expression or mood. |
| I paint in my studio in Carouge near Geneva,Switzerland. |
| Biography
Born in Geneva, Switzerland in 1952, I followed prmary and secondary school at the International Scool of Geneva. I obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Modern Languages (Chinese & French) at the Poly technic of Central (now known as Westminster University).
I discovered painting late, in 2006, after a career of almost 25 years in computers in a humanitarian organization. I left the organization to set up a business in art photography which was modestly successful and discovered painting while taking an introductory course to drawing and painting which I joined in order to enrich my visual experience.
Painting struck me immediately as a very powerful and personal means of visual expression and I was stimulated to transfer all my energy in to this medium.
In the beginning, I educated myself by painting and reading numerous books on painting, at first in acrylics, and then mostly in oils. My new found passion spurred me to learn fast, and after a couple of years I was able to paint with some confidence and sensitivity.
Each painting I create allows me to grow, and I intend my painting to be a never-ending progression.
Exhibitions
3-13 June 2009 - Solo
"Images de Carouge et d'Ailleurs"
Galerie Delafontaine, Carouge
2-27 November 2009 - Solo
International Committee of the Red Cross Restaurant, Geneva
4-17 November 2010 - Collective
International Chinese Cultural Centre
Geneva
|