Things have been busy over the last few weeks in preparation for the new exhibition of work by Peter Standen which opens for a preview night at 6pm on 4th May at Collingwood College, Durham. The exhibition will showcase a really broad range of work from an amazingly diverse career of over fifty years. There are oil paintings, acrylic paintings, and lithographs, as well as the etchings for which Peter is best known. To see a preview of the work on show, go to the current page on the website. The pieces are all wrapped up and ready to go, and I'm sure it's going to be visually stunning.
I'm especially excited by an etching produced specifically for the exhibition earlier this year which envisages Durham Cathedral in Peter's trademark, futuristic, post-environmental apocalyptic setting. It may raise a few eyebrows as the similar scenes of Edinburgh and Glasgow did at our show in Scotland last year, but if Peter's work does one thing, it reminds us that nothing lasts forever, apart from hopefully human determination in the face of profound challenges and an ever-changing world.
Take a look below at the exhibition poster which shows a detail of one of my favourite paintings in the show, 'Lightning Bolt'.