Peter Olson: Marked for Life is on view at Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica
May 25 – July 6, 2024
Craig Krull Gallery is pleased to present Marked for Life, a solo exhibition by Peter Olson.
Peter Olson began his artistic career as a photographer in the ‘70s, founding the punk rock magazine New Sound and working as a street, sports, and commercial photographer. Fusing his original photographs with ancient forms, Olson invented a style of ceramic narrative storytelling in the tradition of ancient Greek vessels. But the figures populating Olson’s ceramic works are not gods and goddesses—they are neighbors, community members, and average people on the street. Olson transfers his photographs of people and design elements onto wheel-thrown vessels, then meticulously colors each element by hand, firing each piece up to ten times to achieve the elegant appearance of finely painted Sévres porcelain.
Olson’s Marked for Life series, now on view at Craig Krull Gallery in Santa Monica, California, shows people’s bodies covered in tattoos—a perfect parallel for Olson’s own practice of decorating his ceramic forms. The portraits in this series were all taken on location in Olson’s native Philadelphia, and each ceramic work becomes a kind of memorial to its subject. Their images are combined with elaborate decorative designs made from an amalgamation of vintage illustrations of the human corpus, and decorative motifs from art museums and ancient manuscripts, to create kaleidoscopic imagery celebrating the temporality of our bodies, and the endurance of our legacies.
About the gallery
A founding gallery at the Bergamot Station Arts Center in 1994, Craig Krull Gallery is recognized for California painting, drawing, sculpture and photography, with a focus on Chicanx art. We represent major LA artists such as Peter Alexander, Don Bachardy, Carlos Almaraz, Judithe Hernández, and Dora de Larios. In the ‘90s, Krull focused on conceptual and experimental photography, and featured now-iconic LA photographers like Julius Shulman and Julian Wasser. Today, the gallery represents innovative materials artists including Brittany Mojo, Pamela Smith Hudson, and Blue McRight, and bold, emerging artists such as Chrissy Angliker and Kelly Berg. The gallery presents 16-20 exhibitions per year, with educational programs, artist talks and performances.
Contact
info@craigkrullygallery.com
Craig Krull Gallery
Bergamot Station
2525 Michigan Ave, Building B3
Santa Monica, CA 90404
United States
Captions
- Philadelphia Portraits. “Marked For Life” series, 2023, hand-thrown ceramic with hand-painted overglazes
