Artist Bio

Denis Peterson was one of the first Photorealists to emerge in New York. He is widely acknowledged as the pioneer and primary architect of Hyperrealism which was founded upon the aesthetic principles of Photorealism. Denis Peterson learned drawing and painting under the lifelong tutelage of his grandfather, a master painter and protege of Claude Monet. Denis earned a BFA while restoring 16th and 17th century Flemish paintings for museums and worked as a graphics illustrator while attaining a Painting MFA at Pratt Institute where he was later awarded a teaching fellowship by Richardson Pratt.

His early photorealist paintings were shown in New York at galleries and in public exhibitions including the Brooklyn Museum, one of the premier art institutions in the world. Following two decades of painting, the next two were a disconnect from his work in order to pursue other interests. Then, breaking with the formal conventions of traditional painting and its aesthetic limitations, he later pioneered hyperrealism, now a widely acknowledged school of art with a significant international following

Process
On-site photos are taken from different angles to produce 500k to 1mb jpegs. Final reference shots are selected and edited in Photoshop as to scale and proportion, leaving approximately one to two inch images from which drawings are made to incorporate additional compositional changes, altered depths of field, expanded color ranges and tonal perspective in enlarged foundational underpaintings. Gouaches, polyvinyls, copolymers, and urethanes in combination with a range of acrylic mediums and resins are applied in glazes with airbrushes and sable brushes are utilized for special effects. Most paintings are completed within 250 hours, depending on size and complexity.

Artist Statement

Video