Barnard Gallery is pleased to present Even Rocks Melt in the Sun by Peter Eastman. Born in Cape Town, he attended Michaelis School of Art at the University of Cape Town before starting his career as an antiques restorer in London. He subsequently developed his own practice and has forged a career as a painter in South Africa where he is recognized and respected for his meticulously made monochromatic paintings.
During the course of his career, Eastman has explored a variety of paint techniques and mediums. Over the last few years, the artist’s substrate of choice has been aluminium to which he applies amongst other things enamel, resin, wax, graphite and oil paint. Scraping, profiling, incising and reworking the surface he creates unique paintings that appear to hover between representation and abstraction. Often his images, held in shallow relief depictions, remain almost invisible until the viewer is positioned correctly for light to cast the images into relief.
The artist’s ongoing body of work, titled Deep Chine, which simply means deep valley or kloof, references a particular piece of land he first visited during his childhood, a place he periodically returns to. The landscape of this specific area is always in flux as it grows, its fragile sandstone cliffs eroding and collapsing, subtly changing the same space upon each visit. Eastman’s paintings are done in two tones, a dark background and light foreground, and as such are in effect paintings of light reflected in this dark forested valley.
Eastman has a longstanding career in the South African art scene and is highly regarded amongst his contemporaries. Early on he was a finalist in the ABSA L’Atelier Award (2003) and he took part in the SASOL New Signatures exhibition (2005). He was a selected amongst 17 International artists, alongside notable names such as Marlene Dumas, William Kentridge and Julie Mehretu, to produce a poster for the FIFA World Cup (2010). This work was later auctioned at Phillips de Pury in New York City. Internationally the artist’s work has been presented at Realisme Amsterdam (2007) and VOLTA Basel (2009). His work was also selected for inclusion in Africa: Assume Art Position!, a group exhibition held at Primo Marella Gallery in Milan (2010). Eastman’s work also featured in the review exhibitions Paint I: Contemporary South African Painting (2012) and Back to the future - Abstract Art in South Africa: Past and Present (2013) presented by SMAC Gallery, Cape Town.
His first solo exhibition, Reflective, was held at Stevenson Contemporary, Cape Town (2004) and was followed by solo presentations at Obert Gallery, Johannesburg (2007 & 2008); Whatiftheworld; Cape Town (2010 & 2012) and SMAC Gallery, Cape Town (2014, 2016, 2017 & 2019). Even Rocks Melt in the Sun (2023) is Eastman’s first solo project with Barnard.