| Artist: peter lewis (view artist gallery) | |
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| I have been mutating, mutilating and reconfiguring popular culture and its images since 1990. Deftly slicing with my scalpel, I seek to shock the viewer's eye out of its complacency with surreal juxtaposition and silly humour. My influences and inspirations include Winston Smith, Max Ernst, Hannah Hoch, Salvador Dali, Mark Ryden and Robert Williams. I intentionally use nostalgic images and pictures taken from old children's books, not only because they appeal to my keen sense of personal nostalgia and revisiting the obsessions of my childhood (robots, monsters, rocketships, dinosaurs), but also because the visual language of childhood evokes memories of a time when magic was everywhere and you either hadn't heard of the 'accepted view of the world' with all its rules and limitations, or you were unwilling to accept it and preferred to make up your own, seeing mystery and intrigue everywhere. The magic still exists, you just have to learn to turn the filters off, to really open your eyes and absorb the beauty of everything around you. |
