work / TEN CUBED - 5 PROJECTS
Peter Atkins - 5 PROJECTS
Ten Cubed
3 April – 16 June 2018
Ten Cubed began collecting Peter Atkins in 2016 with the acquisition of Disney Color Project/Readymade Abstraction exhibited at Art Basel Hong Kong. A series of thirty paintings that reference hardware store colour cards the artist collected from Home Depot in Los Angeles whilst undertaking a residency at the 18th Street Arts Center in Santa Monica. The work was originally included in the prestigious Clemenger Award at the NGV in 2009/10. Ten cubed continues to collect Atkins’ work and in 2017 acquired two new projects; Love Letters and Tamiya Colour Chart. Ada and Dianne remember when they first saw Peter Atkins' work;
'We first came across Peter's work in 2010 when the Hume Highway Project was exhibited at Tolarno Galleries during the Melbourne Art Fair. It looked spectacular spread across a double stand at the Royal Exhibition Buildings. As soon as we laid eyes on the work we wanted to acquire it, however, another collector already had. We continued to follow Peter’s practice since then and when we saw the Disney Color Project/Readymade Abstraction exhibited at Art Basel Hong Kong in 2016 we acquired the whole project without a second thought.’
Atkins’ practice is underpinned by the appropriation of ready-made abstract forms and designs that exist in the urban environment. From street signage, outdoor advertising, product packaging, paint store colour charts, book and record covers, store packaging, patterns on trucks and the angular designs from the sides of caravans. He considers anything and everything as a possible reference for his work as he navigates the urban landscape.
Atkins is particularly interested in the cultural associations of forms that have the capacity to trigger, within the viewer - memory, nostalgia or a shared history of past experiences. Peter states that;
‘My work could be described as an amalgamation of Modernisms attention to process and materials, Pop Arts re-contextualization of mundane mass cultural objects, Minimalisms desire to achieve simplicity through the elimination of all non-essential features and Post Modernisms re-examination, appropriation and deconstruction of all that has gone before. These amorphous boundaries are a calculated attempt to blur the distinction between High Art, Low Art and popular culture.’
Peter Atkins is represented by Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne and GAGPROJECTS, Adelaide.
Links to all 5 Projects below
1. Community Polychrome Project 2006
2. Disney Color Project 2009/10
