Peter Webster

Born Leeds, Yorkshire 1951

28 Woodlane, Falmouth, Cornwall TR11 4RF

Tel 01326 318956  Mob 07920179298

email – peterwebster1951@gmail.com

instagram – peterwebster64

1987 – 2012   Senior Lecturer in Fine Art, University College Falmouth

2013 (continuing) Visiting Lecturer at Falmouth University & West Dean College, Sussex

Bio

After completing my Art Education (Leeds , Cardiff & Reading ) I moved to London in the late 1970s and was part of a community of artists setting up and then working from studios in warehouse spaces, first at Butlers Wharf in Bermondsey and later Chisenhale Studios in Bow. We identified ourselves primarily as artists and picked up whatever menial, part time work we could to support that ambition.

With fatherhood came the necessity to earn a more regular income than my paintings and part time jobs brought in. I started teaching at Hackney AEI and Middlesex Polytechnic Foundation.  In the late 1980s I secured a full time teaching post, first on Foundation, then on the BA & MA Fine Art courses at Falmouth University – then Falmouth School of Art – in Cornwall.

I was fortunate to be constantly in the stimulating company of fellow artists, colleagues and students with whom I explored and shared ideas, ambitions and opportunities. I took early retirement from full time teaching in 2012 to concentrate on my studio practice.

I work from a personal archive of images – which includes modernist buildings, art historical references, museum display spaces, plant forms, graphic & perspectival devices and film and stage sets. 

Drawing, Photography and Model Making support the development of these disparate forms into Paintings where representation and abstraction meet and interweave

I’m interested in the ways  Visual lLnguage evolves into a range of relationships, some formal and controlled, others more improvised and born directly out of the process; always aiming for an image that is both visually and emotionally involving.

Exhibitions

1974 John Moores 9, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

1975 Work by Postgraduates, Reading University

1981 New Gallery, Hornsey, London (one-person show)

Paperworks, Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth

10 Young Artists, Lauderdale House, London

Arcade Gallery, Harrogate (one-person show)

1982 London Group, Camden Arts Centre

Penwith Gallery St Ives

Gardner Centre for the Arts, University of Sussex

1983 Crescent Art Gallery, Scarborough (one person show)

Chisenhale Open Studios, London

Hull University (one-person show)

100 Artists, The Showroom, London

1984 Whitechapel Open, London

1985 St Paul’s Gallery, Leeds

Art for Offices, Wapping, London

1986 Whitechapel Open, London

Artspace, Islington, London

Harrogate International Festival

1992 Sept Artistes Celtes a Kerjean, Brittany

1993 Demarco’s Choice, Newlyn Art Gallery

1994 The Bloodshot Eye, The Gallery in Cork Street, London

Midland Arts Centre, Birmingham, Plymouth Arts Centre,

Hotbath Gallery, Bath

1995 Contemporary Art Market, Royal Festival Hall, London

1996 Critic’s Choice ( Sacha Craddock) Newlyn Art Gallery

1996-97                   Absolut Secret, Royal College of Art, London

1997 Drury Lane Gallery, London

1998 Selected Artists, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol

1999 Critic’s Choice (William Packer), Newlyn Art Gallery

Cornish Art Contemporary Works, Beatrice Royal Gallery,                    Southampton

Japanese Connections, Falmouth College of Arts Gallery

Untitled 5, Falmouth College of Arts Gallery

2001 Bishop Philpot’s Gallery, Truro

Brilliant Corners, Newlyn Art Gallery

2002 Hunting Art Prizes, Royal College of Art, London

Chiaroscuro Arte en Vallico, Tuscany, Italy

2004                           Royal West of England Academy, Bristol 152 Autumn Exhibition

2005             NSA Exhibition, Thompson’s The City Gallery, London

2005            Open Painting, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol

2007            Lineage – selected NSA exhibition Newlyn Art Gallery / Penlee

House Museum

2008             The Drawing Show, Exchange Gallery, Penzance

2009             A Cornish Perspective- Royal West of England Academy, Bristol

2010                           Reality Check Newlyn Art Gallery

2012                           New Light on Newlyn – Plymouth City Museum & Art Gallery

2013 / 14                   Thirty Paintings – Newlyn Art Gallery

2014                           Open West – Wilson Art Gallery, Cheltenham

2015                           NSA 293 – Penwith Gallery, St Ives

2016 (28/08)            British Contemporary Painting – Painting of the Day

2017                         NSA Open Submission ‘Borders’, Tremenheere Gallery, Gulval, Penzance

NSA Critics Choice, (selected by Nicholas Usherwood) Tremenheere Gallery, Gulval, Penzance

Imagine Falmouth Falmouth Art Gallery, Falmouth

2018                        NSA Drawing Explored Tremenheere Gallery. Gulval, Penzance

Wells Art Contemporary  Bishops Palace, Wells, Somerset

2019                        NSA Ex Libris  Tremenheere Gallery, Gulval, Penzance

2019                       Back To The Future –  Four Artists – One Art School – Five Decades Later

                                Andelli Art , Wells, Somerset

2019                       Imagine Falmouth Falmouth Art Gallery, Falmouth

2020                       Sub Six  Bedruthan Hotel, Newquay

Wells Art Contemporary

NSA Edge of Darkness Tremenheere Gallery, Gulval, Penzance

2021                        Nutopia, Rising From Beautiful Ruins

NSA Past, Present, Future. Tremenheere Gallery. Gulval, Penzance

2022.                      NSA The Map Is Not The Territory Tremenheere Gallery. Gulval, Penzance

Bibliography

1982 Peter Webster article by Ken Rowat, The Guardian

1996 Drawing Towards The End of the Century, NSA Publications

2002 ARTNSA

Catching the Wave – Contemporary Art & Artists in Cornwall

by Tom Cross

2013                          Speaking of Painting an essay by Nancy Roth written in the catalogue of Thirty Paintings by Peter Webster at Newlyn Art Gallery  (7th Dec 2013 – 18th Jan 2014)