Winston Wächter Fine Art is pleased to announce an exhibition of new work by painter Peter Waite. In Waite’s mural-like, monumental paintings, he captures familiar, iconic Parisian landmarks and invigorates them. These paintings are not the descendents of the romantic picture-postcards once painted for consumption by grand tourists. Waite chooses these sites not for their status as architectural or historical treasures, but for the potential to serve as triggers for his viewer’s memories. Effectively, Waite drains these sites of their human presence. They open themselves up solely for the viewer’s pleasure.

Waite's past work has featured public and private spaces such as prisons, casinos, boardrooms, public housing, and ancient temples. His primary interest is always in the intersection of personal and social memory. Waite’s formal techniques make it clear that these images are not intended as photorealistic records. What seems at first to be a careful, clear representation of the Paris opera house, or a stop on the Metro, begins to evolve upon closer inspection. Splayed across the surface of Waite’s panels are what he calls "zips" of color and light. These lively markings, the seams where his panels come together and the nail heads that affix them to the wall, all animate the surface of his works. In dissolving the illusion created by Waite’s ostensibly "realistic" rendering of these spaces, they serve to celebrate the materials and the process of painting, and are a reminder of the intricacies and complexities inherent in vision and memory.

For further information, please contact Amanda Snyder at 212-255-2718.