Peter Stichbury
Encyclopedia
Peter Stichbury, born Auckland 1969, is a New Zealand
artist
.
Stichbury graduated from the Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland
in 1997. He won New Zealand’s prestigious Wallace Art Awards
the same year. Stichbury is primarily a painter
but his body of work also spans the mediums of drawing, watercolour, sculpture and sound based work. Stichbury is most renowned for his intricate yet flat portraits of models and modern beauties sourced from contemporary media images. Stitchbury often paints a generalised stereotype of a societal group, as opposed to the specific character study a traditional portrait painter seeks to achieve.
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
.
Stichbury graduated from the Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland
University of Auckland
The University of Auckland is a university located in Auckland, New Zealand. It is the largest university in the country and the highest ranked in the 2011 QS World University Rankings, having been ranked worldwide...
in 1997. He won New Zealand’s prestigious Wallace Art Awards
Wallace Art Awards
The annual Wallace Art Awards are the biggest and longest-surviving art awards in New Zealand. They are for contemporary painting, sculpture and photography and are run by the .-Past winners of the paramount award, to 1992:* 2006 Rohan Wealleans...
the same year. Stichbury is primarily a painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
but his body of work also spans the mediums of drawing, watercolour, sculpture and sound based work. Stichbury is most renowned for his intricate yet flat portraits of models and modern beauties sourced from contemporary media images. Stitchbury often paints a generalised stereotype of a societal group, as opposed to the specific character study a traditional portrait painter seeks to achieve.
Themes and style
- Combines startlingly attractive and awkwardly ugly
- Beauty, models and media images
- Non-conventional beauty: misfits, outsiders and intellectuals
- Haute couture catwalk culture
- Pared down 1950's aesthetic
Influences
- Modern psychology and sociologySociologySociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
, alien conspiracy theory, popular culture and historical painters including Jean Auguste Dominique IngresJean Auguste Dominique IngresJean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres was a French Neoclassical painter. Although he considered himself to be a painter of history in the tradition of Nicolas Poussin and Jacques-Louis David, by the end of his life it was Ingres's portraits, both painted and drawn, that were recognized as his greatest...
and Lucian FreudLucian FreudLucian Michael Freud, OM, CH was a British painter. Known chiefly for his thickly impasted portrait and figure paintings, he was widely considered the pre-eminent British artist of his time...
. - English model Lily DonaldsonLily Donaldson-Career:Donaldson was born in London, and educated at the Camden School for Girls, living in Kentish Town with her parents.Since being scouted by Select Model Management in 2003 at the age of 16 while shopping in Camden, Donaldson has landed campaigns for fashion houses such as Dior, Jil Sander,...
is a favourite subject.
External links
- Work in the collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
- Peter Stichbury is represented by Tracy Williams, Ltd., New York
- Measure of Strangeness, Artspace, New Zealand
- NZ Herald article: Beyond the perfect
- NZ Herald review: Dear patrons, wish you were here
- NZ Herald article: Beautifying the outsiders
- Stichbury tumblelog
- Small World, Big Town: Contemporary Art from Te Papa. City Gallery, Wellington