1st September 2023: Peter Black made Arts Foundation Laureate

Peter Black 2023 Arts Foundation Laureate - link to Arts Fdn. profile page

Along with NZ photographer Fiona Clark and seven other artists, Peter Black received a NZ Arts Foundation Laureate award. Stuff article 1st Sept 2023

PETER BLACK

For over 30 years Peter Black's photographs have been recognised in significant public exhibitions and publications. Selected career highlights include:

• being the first New Zealand photographer to have a solo show at the National Art Gallery - Fifty Photographs, 1980
• the opening show of the McNamara Gallery, Wanganui - Moving Pictures, 2002
• a survey show devoted to his work, City Gallery, Wellington - Real Fiction, 2003. The accompanying catalogue featured leading art and literary writers responding to his work
• being featured in the major publications - Contemporary New Zealand Photographers, Mountain View Publishing, 2005, and Into the Light, Craig Potton, 2006
• a joint exhibition with a Robert Mapplethorpe portfolio at Te Papa - Flowers and Foliage, 2007

His work is in most major public collections in New Zealand, and many significant private collections. Peter's photographs include iconic and innovative series such as Moving Pictures which catches the essence of 'Rogernomics' New Zealand in images taken from a car. Autoportraits 1986 and the 2007 Public series are powerful intimate portraits of strangers in the street. The boundaries between photography, text and cinema are other key concerns in Peter's body of work.

For thirty years Peter developed his own black and white film and made his own silver gelatin prints. A limited number of vintage prints from key bodies of work are still available.

Peter now works in colour with series such as Outskirts which explores the landscape of manufacturing and industry. New Colour is an ongoing series which addresses New Zealand's prospects in the city, country and at the sea shore. Peter has printed these works himself on archival photo rag paper using Epson K3 Ultrachrome inks.

'Peter's photographs insist on a close proximity between 'fictional' and 'real'. He is concerned with the capability of real life to yield metaphors, to expand and contract, to grow. Pictorial analogies abound in the work: while Peter's photographs are images of the real world, they are also a compendium of selected fictions. Together they make a plotless narrative which stretches over nearly 30 years.'- Greg O'Brien, City Gallery,
Real Fiction (Sport 30), 2003, Fergus Barrowman.
Full Greg O'Brien text available at: New Zealand Electronic Text Centre - Sport #30

Peter Black's exhibitions at Photospace Gallery

• Motel Life - 2021
  
• The grass is awfully green - 2013
  
• At Home - 2010
• New Colour - 2009
• Public - 2007
• 10 Conversations (group exhibition curated by Peter Black) - 2004

Recent publications

• Motel Life - MMM Photobooks, Wellington, 2021
  
• Frozen - hardback, with print included - ordering info
• The grass is awfully green - limited edition hardback - ordering info
• The grass is awfully green - exhibition catalogue - ordering info
• I loved you the moment I saw you - VUP 2011 - see books page
• The Shops - with Steve Braunias, 2016 - see books page

Video: Peter Black - Part of the Landscape

This short documentary film - Peter Black: Part of the Landscape - was made by Hans Weston, and released March 2021.

'The Shops' - Peter Black talks with Kim Hill, Radio New Zealand, 5th Nov. 2016

Peter Black in conversation with Simon Sweetman, September 2018 - Simon's podcast episode 132.

Video: Peter Black - Back to Colour

Print sales

The Works for sale page shows a range of prints for sale, both recent colour works and vintage silver-gelatine prints made in the darkroom (the vintage prints are in very limited supply, and no new darkroom prints are being made).
See Vintage prints and Colour prints for the range available to view.

'Blessed'

Blessed is a handcrafted book of 48 A4 original prints, printed by Peter Black on Epson Archival Matte paper using Epson pigment ink.
Hard cover, with an orange buckram covering and gold foil embossing.
Gold metal wiro binding
32 x 22 cm. Cost: $NZ500

Cover of 'Blessed' book by Peter Black

Slide shows of Peter Black photographic series

Click on the photos below to open the slide shows.
All images from these series are available for purchase as archival pigment prints.
For more photographs, see Peter Black's personal website: www.peterblackphotos.com