Lamar Peterson

Lamar Peterson

(b. St. Petersburg, Florida 1974)
Lives and works in Minneapolis, MN 

Satin Sheets, 2014, oil on canvas

Collection of Dr. Robert B. Feldman

Lamar Peterson expands the storytelling of painting with mysterious characters who confront the self, identity, black expression, iconic representations of masculinity, and most profoundly, the incongruity of it all. Here, in Satin Sheets, the protagonist, the artist’s surrogate self, Peterson portrays ambiguity, doubt, and futility with his now signature purposeful naivety, to express disparate congruence. While satin sheets sound nice and comfy, the character is imprisoned by them; the nervousness, worry, and hyper-artificial symbols are the discomfort Peterson seeks to explore.  The unresolved examination of self, insecurity, fear, futility, performance, being liked, and being accepted keeps him awake at night.  This is not what dreams are made of, but what comical, sublime nightmares yield.  Worries regarding the ebb and flow of being a successful artist, a lover, a friend, a man, a child in man’s disguise rattle in the sheets. Combining personal experience and overarching narratives of art history, Satin Sheets operates as Peterson’s homage and personal version of Robert Rauschenberg’s first combines, a term he coined to describe the unique way he attached found objects to traditional canvas supports, yet in Bed (1955), there is no canvas, just an ensemble of sheets with slight tongue-and-cheek gashes. Peterson uses his hallmark trompe l’oeil (to trick the eye) to paint his own combines of the found objects (tools of the frustrated artist: paintbrushes, palettes, half eaten food, plates, and knives) on his nervous sheets that hover above his pristine mise-en-scène twin bed. He is confined by his own making, his own bed, yet still references greatness, admiration, desire.