Peter Roux

Peter Roux Description

Peter Roux (b. 1965, USA)

Peter Roux is an accomplished painter whose work explores the universality of the natural world—particularly clouds, expansive skies, bodies of water, and intimate studies of dense foliage, as well as the ways we, as humans, experience these environments. His hyperreal depictions of the familiar draw viewers in with striking intensity, only to challenge them through unexpected shifts into fields of abstraction and uncertainty. While firmly rooted in landscape, Roux’s work ultimately speaks to juxtaposition—of images, experiences, and our evolving relationship to the world we inhabit.

Roux was born into a military family in 1965. He spent his early childhood moving around the country which exposed Roux to a variety of landscapes, noting their differences and similarities. Throughout these formative years, drawing remained his steadfast companion, and from an early age he knew he was destined to become an artist.

Roux views his paintings as “windows,” exploring how our experience of the natural world is shaped by the constant stream of imagery we absorb through digital media—whether on the internet, television, social platforms, or our personal screens. As he explains in his artist statement, “These intakes help inform how we see the world around us. It’s what we see, and how we see it.” Within his otherwise realistic compositions, Roux introduces bold abstract gestures—such as a thick stroke of orange set against meticulously rendered clouds—that disrupt the illusion of depth. These deliberate interventions remind viewers of the painting’s physical reality as a surface bearing paint, prompting reflection on perception itself.

In recent years, Roux has been adding a sculptural aspect to his work in the form of minimalist columns and cubes which serve as “canvases” for his pictures both representational and abstract. These three-dimensional wall “paintings” function as windows along a visual continuum, inviting viewers to move around and engage with shifting perspectives.

Roux studied Painting at Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston, where he earned his BFA and MFA. He has had numerous solo and group exhibitions, both nationally and in Australia. In 2013, he was awarded an artist residency at BAER Art Center in Hofsos, Iceland. Roux has been featured in New American Paintings Catalogs 20 and 38 and his work is held in many private and corporate collections.

Peter Roux Statement

My work is driven by the natural world and how we experience it. I see my work as pictures about juxtaposition- of things to other things, of images to experience, of us to the world we occupy.

I typically use landscape as an entry point- sky, water, place. I'm drawn to these spaces, but I'm also drawn to how we experience them daily...particularly through the language of the hundreds of predetermined images we encounter moment to moment. These intakes help inform how we see the world around us. It's what we see, and how we see it.

All images of places and things have undergone editing to control narrative and viewer experience. It's a seemingly endless well of choices- scale, size, edges, duration, etc. I'm interested in exploring these in my work. It feels like language to me, conveying meaning and drawing a response.

In recent years this exploration has taken some of my work off the flat 2-dimensional plane and into deeper space, with the work's structure pushing into columns and cubes. If image are windows, I'm looking at the window's shape in addition to the scale- tall verticals, narrowed widths.

All images are substances on surfaces, creating illusion, standing in. This push/pull of illusory space against other types of marks- perhaps flatter and more abstract in nature- is a back and forth dialogue that speaks about the beautiful artifice of image as much as anything else.

Additionally, while my very dire concerns about our treatment of the environment are not the primary driving force in my work, I can't ignore them. They seep in. Perhaps as metaphor, perhaps directly.

In the end, art is a voice from a point in time, about our consciousness in that time. This is mine.

Peter Roux Resumé

Education

1989   B.F.A. Massachusetts College of Art and Design

1993   M.F.A. Massachusetts College of Art and Design

Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions

2025    Group Exhibition at Bender Gallery to benefit the artists effected by Huricane Helene

2024    Gallery at The Umstead, Cary, North Carolina

2020    Van Rensburg Gallery, Milton, Australia

2019    Gallery Orange, New Orleans, Louisiana

2018    Upstairs Artspace, Tryon, North Carolina

2017    Lyons Weir Gallery, New York, New York

2017    Mike Wright Gallery, Denver, Colorado

2015    Van Ward Gallery, Ogunquit, Maine

2015    Candita Clayton Gallery,  Providence, Rhode Island

2014    Gallery at The Umstead, Cary, North Carolina

2013    Fetherston Gallery, Seattle, Washington

2013    Bryant Street Gallery, Palo Alto, California

2013    Work installation Neiman Marcus Boston, Massachusetts

2012    Van Ward Gallery, Ogunquit, Maine

2012    Fetherston Gallery, Seattle, Washington

2009    Van Ward Gallery, Andover, Massachusetts

2009    Pawtucket Arts Collaborative Invitational Show Rhode Island

2009    Jules Place, Boston, Massachusetts

2007    Jules Place, Boston, Massachusetts

2006    G2 Gallery, Scottsdale, Arizona

2006    Melanee Cooper Gallery, Chicago, Illinois

2005    Sasaki Associates, Watertown, Massachusetts

2005    Van Ward Gallery, Ogunquit, Maine

2005    Jules Place, Boston, Massachusetts

2005    G2 Gallery, Scottsdale, Arizona

2004    Tapestry Gallery, Sun Valley, Idaho

2003    Ballard-Fetherston Gallery, Seattle, Washington

2003    Jules Place, Boston, Massachusetts

2002    Trinity Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia

2002    Ballard-Fetherston Gallery, Seattle, Washington

2001    Raymond Lawrence Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia

2001    Ballard-Fetherston Gallery, Seattle, Washington

2000    Etherington Fine Art, Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts

Selected Group Exhibitions

2019    Asheville Area Arts Council, Asheville, North Carolina

2018    Mark Bettis Gallery, Asheville, North Carolina

2018    Miller White Fine Arts, South Dennis, Massachusetts

2018    Wally Workman Gallery, Austin, Texas

2017    Mike Wright Gallery, Denver, Colorado

2017    Blue Spiral 1 Gallery, Asheville, North Carolina

2016    Lyons Wier Gallery, New York, New York

2016    Van Ward Gallery, Ogunquit, Maine

2016    Alan Avery Art Company, Atlanta, Georgia

2016    Sargent Gallery, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts

2012    Reynolds Fine Art, New Haven, Connecticut

2012    Karan Ruhlen Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico

2012    Edgewater Gallery, Middlebury, Vermont

2010    Fetherston Gallery, Seattle, Washington

2010    Eisenhauer Gallery, Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts

2009    Etherington Fine Art, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts

2009    Fetherston Gallery, Seattle, Washington

2008    Allyn Gallup Contemporary Art, Sarasota, Florida

2008    Jules Place, Boston, Massachusetts

2008    Renee George Gallery, Charlotte, North Carolina

2007    Etherington Fine Art, Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts

2007    Anne Loucks Gallery, Glencoe, Illinois

2006    Etherington Fine Art, Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts

2006    Hayes George Gallery, Charlotte, North Carolina

2005    Anne Loucks Gallery, Glencoe, Illinois

2005    Cheryl Hazan Gallery, New York, New York

2004    Tapestry Gallery, Sun Valley, Idaho

2004    Etherington Fine Art, Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts

2003    Trinity Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia

2003    Etherington Fine Art, Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts

2003    Van Ward Gallery, Ogunquit, Maine

2003    Gallery Terrence Denley, Birmingham, Alabama

2002    Trinity Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia

2002    Scott White Contemporary Art, La Jolla, California

2002    Mike Price Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts

2002    Etherington Fine Art, Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts

2002    Van Ward Gallery, Ogunquit, Maine

2002    Gallery Terrence Denley, Birmingham, Alabama

2001    Etherington Fine Art, Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts

2000    Loaning Artists of The DeCordova Museum Federal Reserve Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts

2000    Mike Price Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts

Selected Corporate Collections

• US Department of State
• DeCordova Museum
• Gregory Simmons Group
• Fidelity Investments
• Ritz-Carlton Hotels
• Marriott Hotels
• Westin "W" Hotels
• Meditech Corporations
• MFA Companies
• Hilton Hotels
• Greenfield and Lynch
• Four Seasons Hotels
• Biogen-Idec
• Loomis Sayles and Co.
• Le Meridien Hotels
• Hyatt Place Hotels
• Hotel Viking Newport
• Kimpton Hotels
• Mission Hospitals

Publications

2000   New American Paintings No. 20

2002   New American Paintings No. 38

Studio Visit Magazine, A juried competition in print

published by Open Studios Press

Artist Residency

2013    BAER Art Center, Hofsos, Iceland