Eddie Peake

Fugue  2013

Lacquered spray paint on polished stainless steel

39 x 27 in.

Eddie Peake was born in London in 1981 but has since lived between Jerusalem, Rome and London. He graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art in 2006 and subsequently took a Masters degree at the Royal Academy Schools, which he completed in 2013. The artist also carried out a residency at the British School in Rome from 2008 to 2009. His varied creative projects include performance art, photography, video, installation, sculpture and painting.

 In 2014, the artist featured in Penetrates the Body, Nullifies the Senses at Peres Projects in Berlin. In 2013, he participated in Caustic Community (Masks and Mirrors) at the White Cube in Sao Paolo, in Video at the Focal Point Gallery in Southend, UK and in Adjective Machine Gun at the White Cube in London. His group exhibitions include Somos Libres at the Mario Testino Collection in Peru, Folk Devil at the David Zwirner gallery in New York, and his participation in the Royal Academy of Arts Schools show in 2013.

The artist focuses on the intricacies of various forms of communication in his art. Discerning between verbal and non verbal forms of contact he strives to portray the message of image, sound, emotion and movement in his oeuvre. Peake encourages the viewer to examine their own perceptions: how various languages affect their response and how communication implicates audience into a pre-determined reaction. In his acid-coloured spray paintings, the artist questions the notion of language and text being integral to perception and interaction emphasises the notion of language and text as integral to perception and interaction. Slogans emerge through various layers of spray paint to reveal the work’s grounding, a polished steel surface that reflects the viewers themselves within the work. The audience thus finds themselves in the negative spaces created in the artworks, transforming them into a metaphor for the gaps in contemporary society.