Peter Sharp (b. 1964, Sydney) completed a Bachelor of Art Education at City Art Institute, Sydney (1987) before graduating with a Masters of Fine Art at the University of New South Wales, College of Fine Arts (1992).
Influenced by annual journeys to the Australian desert, and life on Sydney’s coastal fringes, Peter Sharp’s bold abstractions in paint, print, charcoal and sculpture examine the microcosms and macrocosms of the natural environment with an economy of form, motif, line and gesture.
Sharp’s work is a physical manifestation of the metaphysical, or what it is like to experience the immersive elements of nature and the environment. From the inky depths of the ocean and its inhabitants, which yielded subject matter for the exhibitions Whale (2004), Sounding (2005) and Close to the Bone (2006) at Liverpool Street Gallery; to the delicate patterns and ephemeral beauty of the spider’s web, seen in Spider (2007) and Web (2008) at Liverpool Street Gallery, Sharp’s work cohesively and seductively explores the sublime and transcendental qualities of nature.
Influenced by an Indigenous approach to the landscape (nature is part of you, and you are part of nature), Sharp creates a sensory and immersive experience. His work aims to maintain a dialogue between Indigenous and non-Indigenous abstract artists who explore the diversity of the Australian culture, landscape and nature: the desert, the bush and the ocean.
From 1989-1999 Sharp held regular solo exhibitions at Coventry Gallery, Sydney. In 1996, he was awarded the Jacaranda Drawing Prize and in the following year was granted a residency at the Cite’ des Arts Internationale, Paris, where he collaborated with French printmakers to create a series of lithographs and etchings. In 1999, he was invited to exhibit at Kunstraum 34 in Stuttgart, Germany and in 2001, he participated in the award winning television documentary Two-Thirds Sky, which culminated in an exhibition of the same title held at the Hazelhurst Regional Gallery and Arts Centre.
Sharp’s paintings have been exhibited in the Wynne Prize (1996, 2003); the Sulman Prize (1998, 2008); and the Dobell Prize for Drawing (2009, 2010) at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, as well as in numerous regional gallery exhibitions throughout Australia.
In 2012, a survey exhibition, Will to Form, was exhibited at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery and Arts Centre, which contained two decades of Sharp’s work. In conjunction with the survey exhibition, a hard cover, 120-page colour catalogue was published, titled Peter Sharp: Will to Form, which featured essays by Andrew Frost and Gillian Serisier.
Sharp’s work is represented in public institutions and corporate collections, including the National Gallery of Australia, The Holmes à Court Collection, Artbank, The Macquarie Group Collection, Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery, New England Regional Art Museum, Grafton Regional Gallery and the University of Wollongong as well as private collections in Australia and overseas.
Peter Sharp lives and works in Sydney.
- Writers:
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liverpoolstreetgallery
- Date written:
- 2013
- Last updated:
- 2013
