Artist Statement

In making artwork a part of myself, and in making that art reflect who I am, I have gone through many questions about what my senses of art and self are and should be. What makes me who I am? What do I value? What is my complexion? What drives me as a human being? These are the essential questions which I answer for myself through art. My artwork describes desire, beauty, love restrained by fear, anger, anxiety, aggression. These are the dominant forces that inhabit my psyche.

As man I find beauty in the female figure. But along with desire, it invokes an uncertainty, a foreignness that brings fear and all of its inherent reactions. These conflicting emotions are who I am. And they are manifest in my work. I've struggled with the seemingly single-mindedness of my work, but I can't get away from the fact that these are the thoughts and feelings that drive me through a life which seems to lack purpose.

Through my artwork, I am able to give meaning to the basic instinctual processes that course through the passages in my body and mind. My artwork is a reflection of my sense of self as a motivated human being, hindered by psychological counteraction. The canvas or the page becomes this part of me.


~Leif Peterson