Born in Melbourne in 1974, Peter Daverington began his artistic life as a graffiti artist then after 12 years of travelling and painting in the urban centres of the globes most busiest cities he returned to Australia to complete a Master of Fine Arts at the Victorian College of the Arts. Now based in New York, the Australian artist’s work employs a wide range of pictorial languages, engaging with both old European masters and street art. His works are awash with an impossibly complex (and fun) cacophony of intermeshed ideas, genres, symbology, styles and techniques. A coalescence of classical figuration, religious motifs and creation myths interlock amid wild futurist fantasies and surrealist conjurings; alpine landscapes are cut clean into dimensional, geometrical segments and planes. To make these works, Daverington employs a wide range of methodologies and historical references ranging from the Italian Renaissance, Byzantine icon painting, Romantic landscape painting and occidental and oriental heraldry to pop and the graphic arts.
After completing an MFA at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2006, Daverington received the prestigious KPMG tutorship to teach in the painting department. He has received two Australia Council for the Arts project grants, in 2005 and 2010 respectively; the John Coburn Emerging Artist Award in 2008, and the Rupert Bunny Fellowship in 2011 for his first moving image work. Daverington has exhibited extensively in both solo and group exhibitions, notably Before the Apocalypse, Shanghai Mass Art Centre, Shanghai (2016); Lurid Beauty: Australian Surrealism and its Echoes, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2015-16); The Garden, QUT Museum, Brisbane (2015); Hudson Valley Centre of Contemporary Art, Peekskill, New York (2013); and Santa Fe International New Media Festival, Santa Fe, New Mexico. He has been shortlisted for numerous prestigious art awards including the Moran Prize (2018), the Archibald Prize and the Sulman Prize (2014 and 2013); the Fleurieu Art Prize, (2013); and the Geelong Contemporary Art Prize (2012). His work has been acquired by several major collections, including Artbank, KPMG, Macquarie Bank, Geelong Gallery and Gippsland Art Gallery, as well as private collections throughout Australia and abroad.
Recent News:
- Art Guide, Inserting the deep past into the present, Steve Dow, Oct 2018
- Artnet, The Top 30 Most Exciting Street Artists Right Now: Part I, Sarah Casscone, Nov, 2016
- The Art Life, Why A Mountain: An Interview with Peter Daverington, Andrew Frost, Nov, 2016
- The Australian, Peter Daverington’s Welcome to the pleasure dome at Geelong Gallery, Bronwyn Watson, April, 2016
- Art Collector, The Bewildering Spectacle, Phip Murray, p.160 – 166, Oct 2014
- Artnet, John James Audubon Takes Flight in Harlem, Sarah Casscone, Nov 2014
- New York Times, Where Audubon Found Repose, Sprayed-On Specimens Alight, Matt A.V. Chaban, Nov 2014
- The Age, In the galleries: art around Melbourne, Dan Rule, Oct 17 2014
- Art Collector, On the World Stage, Phip Murray, p.76-77, Jan, 2014
- ARTnews, Reviews: International, Kirsten Rann, p.110, Sept, 2013
- Art Collector, Shanghai’s first official street art mural, Alexandra Djurichkovic, June 12, 2013
- Berlin Art Link, Blink/Peter Daverington, Angela Connor, April 17, 2013
- The Age, Peter Daverington: From the Future with Love, Dan Rule, 16 March, 2013
- Sydney Morning Herald, Big, bold and full of possibilities, Steve Dow, Jan 1, 2013
- Art Monthly: ‘Shapeshifter’, Kirsten Rann, p.5-8, (illus) March 2012
- The Age: ‘Peter Daverington, Poiesis’, Dan Rule, 24 Sept, 2011
- Herald Sun: ‘Out Of This World’, Harbant Gill, 18 Jan, 2010
- The Age: ‘Air of trepidation in world of uncertainty’, Robert Nelson, 27 Oct, 2008
- Vogue Living: Digital Life, Annemarie Kylie, Oct-Dec, 2008
- Australian Art Review: ‘Sublime Aspirations’, Ashley Crawford, p.20-22, Vol 17, 2008
- The Age: ‘Artist puts a fresh spin on Islam’, Andrew Stephens, April 21, 2007