Macabre and decadent works fuelled by Cleon Peterson's life journey
Today globally known for his works characterised by epic scenes of bloody fights, Cleon Peterson did not seem destined to become an international figure in Street art. Indeed, he who projects onto canvas or sculpts his vision of a monstrously brutal society has rather risked finding himself six feet under or languishing in an American prison. exhibited in prestigious galleries the world over.
His style, recognisable at first glance, translates without ever becoming too Two or three colours Urban violence, somewhat in the style of an artist Pop art who would depict scenes of mythological clashes on ancient Greek amphorae. His approach also draws inspiration Graphic codes in advertising and propaganda to convey a virulent critique of the system.
On the fringes of emerging themes
Born in 1973 in Seattle, in the north-west of the United States, the young asthmatic Cleon Peterson and his little brother Leigh Ledare who, he, will distinguish himself in photography, were raised by Tina, a mother who was a ballet dancer, and a father who was a construction worker, in a deprived environment. Due to his lung condition, Young Cleon occupies his time by staying at home, too ill to attend school, as he was during his frequent week-long monthly hospital stays, by drawing incessantly..
During his younger years, the art world seemed within his grasp as his bohemian parents surround themselves with a whole host of visual artists, actors, comedians, and musicians who regularly visit them to partake in some wild parties. In a interview, Cleon Peterson confided that this period contributed significantly to their artistic awakening.
Hooked on drawing and Fauvist painting, he began exhibiting as a teenager in local schools and churches. He then landed a scholarship at the age of 17 to go and study at the Pratt Institute of Brooklyn. Cleon Peterson finds himself left to his own devices in the vastness of New York in the early 1990s but discovers the work of pioneering artists in museums such as Warhol, Basquiat, Keith Haring You Leon Golub which he cites as influences. However, he lets himself be intoxicated by the vices of the city that never sleeps, caught up in drugs like heroin, which he compulsively consumed for two years before returning to Seattle.
It's thanks to his brother Leigh, skateboard enthusiast sponsored by a brand of San Diego, he found a way to earn a living as an illustrator. Initially hired by this brand, he moved to San Diego to design skateboards. He will work in particular with Skate Foundation, Pig Wheels You Zero in logo design but his addictions catch up with him. He then goes on to periods in prison and psychiatric hospitals, lived in his car, before resigning himself to a year and a half in a detoxification centre following a court order.
Work pays off
Weaned, in 1998 he went to the artist's studio. Shepard Fairey, famous street artist internationally known by the alias Obey. He wishes to get hired there as an assistant. After nearly two years working for Fairey, Peterson decides to resume his studies to try and earn a decent living. In 2004, he graduates with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design at Art Center College of Design, Pasadena. Two years later, he obtained his Master's at the Cranbrook Academy of Detroit.
Meanwhile, He toils away painting in his free time to try and fulfil his personal artistic aspirations.. It is at this point that he begins to develop the style and themes that will bring him his current acclaim. He then leaves for Los Angeles, determined to live by his brush.
To survive, he is working this time in the illustration of artist's book mock-ups. On this occasion, in 2007, a gallery owner discovered her personal work and offered to display it in a group exhibition. Jeffrey Deitch, former director of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, impressed by the style of Peterson, decides to buy the entire series of paintings presented to display them in his prestigious gallery Deitch Projects in New York.
Life School, From the Street to the Gallery
The trials he has experienced and the tribulations of a junkie's life contribute to forging his artistic style. Pop and decadent. He starts to represent urban violence, social tensions and police repression. His works are filled with dark characters imagined at the crossroads of Greek mythology, street art, industrial graphics and propaganda imagery in a saturated palette of black, blood red and a purifying white.
Peterson shapes Chaotic scenes of injustice and depravity where life and death, violence and disorder coexist. It ingeniously incorporates Numerous allegories and symbols with a dark humour tone and also questions the ordinary monstrosity, the reports of domination, beauty in suffering and everyone's role in daily horror. During an interview with the magazine LA Weekly, in March 2022, he described his own work in three words: « Power, perception, and violence ».
In August 2008, Cleon Peterson takes off during a joint exhibition with the artist Kill Pixie à San Francisco. The following year, he was invited for his first solo exhibition in Los Angeles. In June 2014, the Palais de Tokyo it solicits it to Paris to carry out, as part of the third edition of LASCO PROJECT, a 48-metre-long fresco that he names Electricity. It depicts, in black and white, men, clad only in underwear, engaging in a veritable massacre.
Two years later, he returns to Paris. For the Sleepless Night, the Palais de Tokyo he asked him to carry out this time a painting of 700 m2 on the parvis of the Eiffel Tower. This work is titled Endless Sleep (« eternal slumber ») as a snub to the name of this French artistic and cultural event. It is at The galerie du jour agnès b. that he exhibits a new series of canvases and sculptures in 2017.
The same year, he is chosen by Ariane Rothschild to customise Gitana 17, the family maxi-trimaran. The sails are illustrated with four warriors with five arrows symbolising the four daughters of the Rothschild couple and the five sons of the founder of this illustrious dynasty. Most recently, between 13 February and 4 March 2023, he was found on the Japanese archipelago. This artist, as unique as he is subversive, was the subject of a solo exhibition there entitled « Under the Sun, the Moon and the Stars »at the Kaikai Kiki Gallery in Tokyo.
