WORK OF THE WEEK: Peter Frie, Landscape 3, 2023

Peter Frie
Landscape 3, 2023
Oil on canvas
120 x 90cm / 47 ¼ x 35 ½ in.

Landscape and a love of nature has always been at the forefront of Peter Frie’s vision. Dominated by expanses of sky, Peter Frie's landscapes show his masterful use of space and light. Working only from memory, never on site or from photographs, Frie's paintings do not recreate actual landscapes but "plausible landscapes" which evoke a response from the viewer. As Jeremy Lewison writes in Peter Frie: The View Belongs to Everyone, "standing in front of his work encourages the viewer to engage with their own memories, not of the landscape depicted but experiences had in similar situations". Frie often depicts landscapes in twilight, a transient moment signalling the passing of time, perhaps a memory fading as Frie paints. The white areas surrounding the image underline the ambiguity of memory, the painted landscape part of a more detailed thought impossible to recall as a whole.

Frie’s three-dimensional works in bronze, an aspect of his practice that began in 2009, are characterised by their painterly surfaces. The dark patina of the bronze gives the effect of silhouetted trees on an evening landscape.

Peter Frie (b.1947) lives and works in Båstad, Sweden and Phuket, Thailand. His work is in a number of major public collections including the Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Kiasma Museum of Modern Art, Helsinki; and the Malmö Museum, Malmö, as well as private collections across Europe. Peter Frie first exhibited with the New Art Centre in London in 1984 and has since shown his work regularly at Roche Court.

Peter Frie
Big Yamutree, 2016
Bronze and stainless steel
340 x 245 x 152 cm / 11ft 2 x 8ft x 4ft 12 in.
Unique