Featured Artist Profile: Peter Anderson

Peter Anderson (b.1956, Brisbane) is a mid-career Australian painter, who lives and works in his home town of Brisbane. Anderson completed a Diploma of Fine Art (Painting) at the College of Art, Brisbane between 1974-76, before completing a Graduate Diploma of Fine Art (Painting) at RMIT, Melbourne in 1977. Through his formative years Anderson held a great interest in the family traditions of the ‘drawn from life’ image.

Study was followed by around the world sailing voyages, including ethnographic and scientific expeditions, where his expedition art recording style has become his subject genre.  From 1978-81, Anderson was Second Mate on sailing ship Eye of the Wind for Operation Drake Circumnavigation. In 1982-83 he was an expedition artist on Tami Canoe Project in Papua New Guinea, and in 1984-85 was co-pilot for the Endeavour Balloon Project, Trans Australia Flight. Later in 1994-96 Anderson undertook a private 2 ½ year circumnavigation in a 36ft ketch named Skerryvore.

Through painting, Anderson attempts to show the grandeur of the untouched, natural world, from the eye height of the sailor-explorer.  There, the appreciation of the subject matter before him, together with creating the circumstances of getting there and being there, are equally important. Few artists are recording the subjects Anderson seeks out and he has always been very interested in the history of exploration beyond the uninhabited edge.

Anderson’s paintings have become an uncompromising view into how the planet is dealing with climate change, which is noticeably evident in his choice of high latitude and polar subjects. In recent years, he has felt the increasing responsibility to ‘visualise the science’ in recording that change. “Only with repeated visits to the same locations, do you grasp the speed of that change, it hits you like a hammer.  I feel I must use whatever facility I have to be a conduit for this message.”

Anderson has been a multiple finalist in major prizes such as the Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the Tattersall’s Landscape Art Prize in Brisbane. Anderson is represented in a number of institutional collections including the Parliament House Art Collection, Canberra; Rockhampton Art Gallery, Queensland; and the University of Otago, New Zealand.

Peter Anderson is represented by Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane.