artist statement
My artwork often focuses on nature’s “off-peak” moments, fallow periods when plants die, bend, break, and lie in disarray, sinking back into the earth, or when light fades into darkness. These moments have a quiet beauty of their own, and point to the way in which our human experience of beauty is bound up in transitions: in cycles of decay and regeneration, darkness and light, and form and formlessness.
The paintings depict specific natural sites, but they also balance representation and abstraction, at times defining and at times dissolving the landscape image. They are as much about the process of looking, feeling, and painting as about the site itself: as much about inner as outer world. I build textures using a mixture of media to create a surface that evokes the gritty, elemental presence of earth, while also creating a sense of place.
BIO
Born in Finland and raised in New York City, Petri has lived in Massachusetts for all of his adult life. He currently lives in the rural town of Harvard in North Central Massachusetts, where he also has his art studio.
Petri’s previous exhibitions include solo shows in Boston at the Bromfield Gallery and Kingston Gallery, as well as a large-scale solo show at the Finlandia Gallery in Hancock, Michigan. He has had work in many group exhibitions as well, including shows at New Britain Museum of American Art (New Britain, CT), McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College (Chestnut Hill, MA), Gallery Marquee (Fitchburg, MA), Fivesparks (Harvard, MA), Amos Eno Gallery (NYC, NY), and Woodstock Gallery of Art (Woodstock, VT)
Petri recently retired from his faculty position in art at Fitchburg State University, where he taught for 27 years. He exhibited his artwork regularly in faculty shows at the Hammond Gallery at Fitchburg State, as well as in the Fitchburg Art Museum.
contact:
978.339.3818