Peter Van Dyck: A Flight to the World

Peter Van Dyck: A Flight to the World

May 5 - June 17, 2022

Peter Van Dyck’s paintings locate the viewer in a world they are sure to recognize, performing the extraordinary trick of turning each window, doorway, sidewalk, and street into an entryway. Frames of all kinds, nominally rectangular as the canvases themselves, conduct the viewer from place to place. And yet, the perimeters of these frames are expressed with an optical curvature, not unlike the orbits of eyes peering from their sockets.

Van Dyck’s work has a curious Philadelphia pugnacity, emphatic in its romance while refusing the comfort of any unearned transcendence. Flight in poetry can be toward or away from something. Van Dyck’s pictures seem firmly rooted in the latter - a movement toward the world. The viewer’s participation is mobile and fluid, an itinerary choreographed by the painter’s hand.

Peter Van Dyck (b. 1978) is a painter, draftsman, and general life-enthusiast living part-time in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Elba, Alabama. He was educated at the Florence Academy of Art, has been widely exhibited, and was named one of the 25 Important Artists of Tomorrow by American Artist Magazine in 2012. He was included in the 2013 book Painted Landscapes, Contemporary Views, by Lauren P. della Monica, and his work has been reproduced in publications such as: American Arts Quarterly, Art News, American Art Collector, International Artist Magazine, and Art and Antiques.