Denis Peterson at Saatchi

What do you know, I actually went and voted. I got a couple of 'personal invitations' to join the Saatchi Gallery Online, which I did not get around to doing; I became even more suspicious when a BWAC member considered the fact that she had been 'personally invited' to join the Saatchi Gallery Online a newsletter-worthy event.Such cynicism is mine. Obviously I shall be a Failure in Life.

I like Denis Peterson... Normally I would not go and vote, but I like your blog.

I don't have a lot of time for this kind of painting, it's not really painting it's coping photos. It has the WOW factor for 5 minutes, but it's really the the pictorial equivalent of a obsessive compulsive disorder.Hyper realism is something I just think is a complete waste of paint.But then that is a very subjective viewpoint.

The other issue with this work is there is a kind of voyeuristic aspect that bothers me. Peterson is not a photo-journalist documenting the suffering of these people.He is selling paintings that are hyper-realist done from photos.He's very talented and good at what he does but from reading his statement and looking at the work it leaves me thinking what is the agenda here.It's not the same as say a James Nachtwey taking photos of the same thing. You don't see photo-journalist asking for people to vote for them on Saatchi's Showdown web site.I find this to be very troubling and it diminishes any creditability to his idea of showing the 1st world the suffering of the 3rd.

I was going to let you be cranky, P-Dog, but with the last comment, I feel I have to defend Denis.Denis isn't a photojournalist, but he works with photojournalists; the photos he uses he gets directly from photographers working in the field, many of whom, like Denis, are drawn to the plight of the victims of genocide. They become activists sometimes in spite of themselves.Also, when his paintings sell, he tries very hard to get the profits to the people in the photos, if he can find them; if not, I'm pretty sure he donates them. I don't know percentages, though -- how much he keeps for himself, how much he passes on. I didn't get the impression he needs the revenue.He wants to win the Saatchi Showdown, in his words to me: "It will bring attention to genocideif I can get in and talk about it on the news."Now, I'm a confirmed cynic. I'm not sure genocide needs attention brought to it; it seems to me everyone looks away regardless. I doubt the efficacy of painting as a way to end genocide. But that's me and my cynical side. My more idealistic side -- scratch a cynic and find an idealist -- says that more people should do what they can, and this is what Denis can do, and more power to him.

I was not being cranky, I was being cynical like yourself.It's nice that he donates some of his money to the cause of peoples suffering.My problem is, like that with Steve Mumford(even though he was in Iraq the work for some reason does not come off like he was),strange).While his motives are very noble I think by being so removed from the subject and the place, they become more like objects.The difference between one being in a refugee camp documenting what you see, smell, and the overwhelming of ones senses that you experience can't be reproduced in the studio.The work shows that, he makes them way to 'pretty' as images.If you google Ivor Hele, a great WW2 and Korean war artist(was in the Australian army)you can see great art made by someone who experienced the real thing.He drew in the battle filed in 2 wars, he made portraits of sappers and officers. His drawings from the field are powerful and he is a master.That said I don't have a problem with Mr.Peterson's idea, I think he should go to these places and really experience what it is like.There was a British painter, Peter Howson who went to Bosnia and he made some real powerful work based on his experience. He had a breakdown from it as well.I don't advocate getting that, but he was very emotionally effected by the experience and that comes out in his work.