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PETER NEWMAN

(b. 1969 - London, UK)

For more than 15 years Newman has been making photographs, sculptures, paintings and videos that address a human relationship to the sky. For him, looking upwards is an inherently optimist gesture and something he compares to thinking about the future.  As the artist has said: ‘Gravity dictates the earth contains a buried past of dinosaurs and archeology, the surface reveals the activity of present daily life, but what is above is an empty field of possibility, a space in which to conceive and live the future.’ 

Newman has developed an on-going series of photographs entitled Metropoly that record the view looking up in different cities around the world. The photographs are taken using a vintage ultra wide-angle lens, that captures a 180-degree field of view, adapted to fit a state-of-the-art digital camera. Originally invented for astronomy and to observe atmospheric phenomenon, here the artist uses the ‘all-sky’ lens to record the urban panorama overhead. The circular images celebrate a variety of iconic architecture, the way it reveals the character of a city and frames the sky above.

Using this lens enables the artist to see the sky as a finite shape. Formed from solid aluminium, the Skyspace works present a series of reversals; the sky becomes solid, the architecture becomes space, and the walls on which they are hung, cease to be a neutral backdrop, but become an integral part of the work. Presented in the manner of time-zone clocks, these brightly coloured pieces occupy a mid-point between sculpture, painting and photography.

Skystation is an interactive public sculpture, inspired by Le Corbusier’s iconic LC4 chaise-longue, that also acts as a piece of public seating.  The contours of the work are designed to fit the reclining human form and encourage contemplation of the vast expanse of space above and beyond.  An object to be both observed and used, Skystation has the incidental effect of bringing its users’ heads into close proximity, thereby making conversation between strangers almost inevitable, whilst looking upwards.  In the best tradition of British street furniture, it is accompanied by a commemorative plaque, which reads ‘In Loving Memory Of Those Yet To Be Born.’

Peter Newman attended Goldsmiths College, University of London from 1987—90. Since graduating, he has had solo exhibitions in London, Brussels, Hamburg, New York, Chicago and Tokyo.  He has exhibited in Trafalgar Square, the Royal Festival Hall, the Hayward Gallery in London and The Guggenheim Museum in Venice, Italy.  His work was projected onto the exterior of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, in Kanazawa, Japan for the inaugural exhibition in 2004.  In 1999 he was awarded the Mark Rothko travel scholarship and in 2005 he received an artist award from the Arts Council of England.

His work is in public and private collections including the MUDAM, Museum of Modern Art, Luxembourg, 21st Century Museum for Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan, Goldmann Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Bingham McCutchen, Fidelity, The Cleveland Clinic, Land Securities and Great Portland Estates. The first permanent Skystation is installed in Cambridge, England and will soon be followed by one in London within the Riverlight development in Vauxhall, designed by Rogers, Stirk and Harbour.