Sculpture: “Ladybugman" on International exhibition:
Tartu Printmaking Festival “Shadows” named after Peeter Allik
Tartu Artist House 10.06.–10.07.2022
Monument for:
THE SPECIAL OPERATION
Includes mothers with children on the run.
Height 171 cm. Width 83 cm. Depth 41 cm
Fish Kiss
105 x 48 x 8,5 cm
Material: Wood and author material
Monument for The Rest
20 x 15 x 45 cm
Three paintings included on:
The Jubilee exhibition of the Estonian Painter association: LOVE STORY. On New Art Museum in Pärnu.
Here:
The Clean Presentation (Niels Jørgen)/Puhas esitlus (Niels Jørgen) Oil on canvas 200 × 100 cm.
Cooperation/Koostöö. Oil on canvas. 210 × 85 cm.
Exhibition: „Haiguste ravi. Kontrollitud.“ 18.01.–26.02.2022.
Vaal Gallery Tallinn.
Artists:
Alice Kask, Kaupo Kikkas, Laurentsius, Maarit Murka, Per William Petersen, Sirje Petersen, Tiit Pääsuke, Kadri Toom, Jaan Toomik, Alar Tuul.
Curator Katri-Evelin Kalaus.
Designer Madis Liplap
Interwiew:
Footprints in the snow
– a sculptor’s way
Made of Triinu Soikmets for Nordic Baltic Art Center NOBA 2022
https://noba.ac/en/footprints-in-a-snow-a-sculptors-way/
Yes, I do snowmen – all the time, even in the summer!
I do not even want to be cured of that occupation, even though life might have been easier without it.
The most important Art Prize in Tartu in Estonia
The Ado Vabbe Award 2021, was awarded to the Danish artist Per William Petersen.
Tartu tähtsaima kunstipreemia pälvis taanlasest skulptor Per William Petersen
https://tartu.postimees.ee/7411489/tartu-tahtsaima-kunstipreemia-palvis-taanlasest-skulptor?
320 pages in 3 languages: English, Estonian and Danish
ENGLISH
Per William Petersen has consciously undertaken a deeply intriguing experiment on the scale of his own life: to exchange an environment filled with clearly defined patterns of memory for an environment that is completely open to unexpected situations.
Per William Petersen’s works always make you do a double take, something that has always been touched with sensitivity in people and their nature.
That is why the works collected in this volume also act as a journey into the human soul, which is full of surprises and emotions.
Kaire Nurk, artis and art writer
EESTI
Per William Peterseni teadlikult ette võetud elu-mastaapi eksperiment – vahetada kindlaid mälumustreid täis keskkond läbinisti ootamatustele avatud uue keskkonnaga – on sügavalt intrigeeriv.
Per William Peterseni teosed tekitavad alati kerge nõksatuse, alati on tundlikult midagi puudutatud inimeses ja tema olemises.
Nii muutub siinne kaante vahele kogutud teostejada ka ühtlasi üllatuste ja emotsiooniderohkeks rännakuks inimhinge.
Kaire Nurk, kunstnik ja kunstist kirjutaja
DANSK
Per William Petersens bevidst gennemførte livsskalaeksperiment. At udveksle et miljø, fyldt med visse hukommelsesmønstre, med et helt nyt miljø, totalt åbent for det uventede – er dybt fængslende.
Hans værker giver altid et lille ryk, de berører altid følsomt noget i mennesket og i dets væsen.
På denne måde bliver rækken af værker, der er samlet i denne bog, en overraskende og følelsesrig rejse til den menneskelige sjæl.
Kaire Nurk, kunstner og kunstskribent
Flying Mind
75 X 60 X 50 cm
Author technic
Stars have Sharp Edges
Hight 104 cm
Deep 80 cm
wide 29 cm
Author’s technique / Autoritehnika
The Big Step
High 26 cm. Length 39 cm. Wide 10 cm.
Aluminium
New in Gallery Objects
Seeking Soul/Otsiv hing
Author’s technique / Autoritehnika
54× 44 × 26 cm
Reunion Express
38 X 34 X 6 cm
Author’s technique / Autoritehnika
Infinity and Beyond
Author’s technique / Autoritehnika
45× 36 × 6 cm
Available in all Apollo bookstores in Estonia
"Very nice show! Immediately made my mood happy.
Marite Rikkas has not seen such good works and titles for a long time. Thank you!"
From the guestbook in exhibition “Woman in Fur” Tartu Art House 03.09-03.10. 2021.
Exhibition respons in SIRP 24. October 2021. SIRP is Estonias Culture Newspaper comes out once a week.
You can read it here in 5 minutes -if you are good to estonian ;-)
https://www.sirp.ee/s1-artiklid/c6-kunst/sensiibel-geomeetria/
Per William Petersen in Tartu Art House
On Friday, 3 September at 5 p.m. the sculptor and painter Per William Petersen will open his solo exhibition “Woman in Fur. Selected Works 1995–2020” in the large gallery of the Tartu Art House. The exhibition is curated and designed by Madis Liplap. At the opening, a substantial publication about the artist’s oeuvre will be presented.
The art historian Peeter Talvistu has written: “Although
Per William Petersen is originally from Denmark, over the last fifteen years he has become an established and valued member of the art life in Tartu and in Estonia in general. His contributions are no longer seen as coming from a guest from abroad but as works made by a sculptor and painter who is a known and treasured member of the local community. His geometrical style, patina-like finishing and whimsical sense of humour are considered something quintessentially Petersen-esque.”
The artist and art historian Kaire Nurk adds: “Per William Petersen has consciously undertaken a deeply intriguing experiment on the scale of his own life: to exchange an environment filled with clearly defined patterns of memory for an environment that is completely open to unexpected situations. His works constantly make you do a double take, something that has always been touched with sensitivity in people and their nature. They also act as a journey into the human soul, which is full of surprises and emotions.”
The book “Woman in Fur. Selected Works 1995–2020” collects Petersen’s oeuvre from the last twenty five years alongside his thoughts about life and creation. It also includes a lengthy interview and an article by Kaire Nurk. The book is in English, Estonian and Danish.
Per William Petersen is a sculptor, painter and graphic designer who was born in 1955 in Denmark and is living in Tartu, Estonia. He is a member of the Estonian Artists’ Association, Estonian Sculptors’ Union, Tartu Artists’ Union and Danish Sculptors Society. This is his first solo exhibition in the Tartu Art House.
Thanks: Tartu Artists’ Union, Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Danish Cultural Institute, Peeter Talvistu, Kaire Nurk and Tanel Asmer.
The exhibition is open
until 3 October 2021
Annual Exhibition of the Estonian Sculptors’ Union 2021.
"Together" “Koos" Bronze / Pronks + model in wood
On the exhibition „Flows into Being” in the Pallas Gallery. 22.09.2021 – 23.10.2021 Curator: Heiti Kulmar
New in Gallery Objects
Calm, Cool, and Collected
Rahulik, külma kõhuga
ja tasakaalukas
Author’s technique / Autoritehnika
56× 26 × 23 cm
New in Gallery Upjects
Just as I thought happy could
not be happier
50 X 40 X 12 cm
Author technic
Tartu Artist Union annual meeting 2021
https://kultuur.err.ee/1608317153/tartu-kunstnike-liit-kinnitas-rekordilised-15-uut-liiget
Foto: Jaak Kikas
The Sculpture "Together in the West Wind" on the international sculpture exhibition ”URBI E ORBI” in Ølgod, Denmark.
26 June to 27 September 2021
The front page of the catalog for the same exhibition
The sister sculpture for "Together in the West Wind" - "Together in the Side Wind" is set up in Elsinore July 2021
New in Gallery Objects
Sleepless
Unetu
Author’s technique / Autoritehnika
58 x 30 x 26 cm.
The head can rotate 360 degrees
New in Gallery Objects
Comming Home
Koduteel
Author’s technique / Autoritehnika
33 × 20 × 18 cm
New in Gallery Objects
The Portuguese Cat
Portugali kass
Author’s technique / Autoritehnika
26 × 13 × 20 cm
New in Gallery Objects
Meet Me on the Moon
Tutvuge minuga Kuul
Author’s technique / Autoritehnika
60 ×13,5 × 37 cm
New in Gallery Objects
The Moment I Realized
Height 56 cm Width 17cm Depth 33 cm
Author technic
3 paintings on:
Estonian Painters Association Annual Exhibition "Temporary Area/Ajutine pind" Curator: Jaan Elken. UKM-MONA in Pärnu. Open from 20.02.- 28.03.2021 .
The Man that turned out to be Jazz
Mees, kes osutus Jazziks
Hight 46 cm
Author technic
New in Gallery Objects
Together in the West Wind
Hight 100 cm Wide134 cm Dept 33 cm
Author technic
Estonian Sculpture Union's annual exhibition -National Library in Tallinn.
Eesti Rahvusraamatukogu 6. korruse näitusesaal
October 7 - October 27, 2020
Per William Petersen:
Going to the History
The Little Book About Everything
H 58 cm L 65 cm D 22 cm
The Big Book About Nothing
H 105 cm L 90 cm D 42 cm
Catalog from Estonia Art Union
Spring exhibition 2020 in Art Hall in Tallinn until 12.07.2020
“Cut the Crap”
Cut the Crap is a Heavenly band consisting exclusively of members of the "27 Club”
https://www.kunstihoone.ee/en/programme/estonian-artists-association-spring-exhibition/
New in Gallery Objects
"If you decide to sit on horseback through life,
it is important you select the right horse!”
Length 95 cm. Hight 94. Wide 3. Author technic
“Cut the Crap” on 20. Spring Exhibition in Art Hall in Tallinn until 12.07.2020
Cut the Crap is a Heavenly band consisting exclusively of members of the "27 Club”
https://www.kunstihoone.ee/en/programme/estonian-artists-association-spring-exhibition/
ETV 12. JUNE 2020: https://kultuur.err.ee/1101855/tallinna-kunstihoone-aastanaitus-toob-vaatajateni-142-kunstniku-tood
Tallinna Televisioon: https://youtu.be/ltX3HKUlEsI
Eesti Päevaleht: https://epl.delfi.ee/kultuur/fotod-kunstihoone-kevadnaitusel-naeb-66-kunstniku-maalitud-74-portreed?id=90149021#!dgs=dgsee-258961:D7U6PlsIqGM9k-JOsMcglH
Cut the Crap is a Heavenly band consisting exclusively of members of the "27 Club”
Right now it exist of 8 members.
Songbird.
Proposal for prize statuette
for the Music Award
Brass. Height 34 cm
New in Gallery Objects
7th and 8 member of the Band: Cut the Crap
Cut the Crap is a Heavenly band consisting exclusively of members of the "27 Club”
Height 720 mm Wide 320 mm Dept 340 mm
Author technic.
New in Gallery Objects
5th member of the Band: Cut the Crap
Cut the Crap is a Heavenly band consisting exclusively of members of the "27 Club”
Height 560 mm Wide 600 mm Dept 270 mm
Author technic.
New in Gallery Objects
6 th member of the Band: Cut the Crap
Cut the Crap is a Heavenly band consisting exclusively of members of the "27 Club”
Height 560 mm Wide 600 mm Dept 270 mm
Author technic.
New in Gallery Objects
Fourth member of the Band: Cut the Crap
Height 440 mm Wide 400 mm Dept 280 mm
Author technic.
New in Gallery Objects
Third Member of the Band: Cut the Crap
Hight 570 mm Wide 320 mm Dept 340 mm
Author technic.
Here Ulrich Thomsen stands with a piece of cake,
in front of the work "Happily Ever After."
And remember to watch his new great movie Gutterbee.
Eesti Energia has used one of my 3 sculptures “Kiviõli” (Oilstone) for the cover of their 2018 annual report.
2014- 1th Prize.. Competition for commissioning work of art to Tallinn University Technology Virumaa College Oil Shale Competence Center. (Tallinn University od Technology)
New in Gallery Objects
The second member of the band:
Cut the Crap
Hight 470 mm Wide 480 mm Dept 340 mm
Author technic.
New in Gallery Objects
Serious Glass Dependent.
The founder of the band: Cut the Crap
Hight 650 mm Wide 270 mm Dept 410 mm
Author technic.
New in Gallery Objects
The Breakthrough
Depth 72 cm. Hight 125 cm. Wide 35 cm.
Author technic
New in Gallery Upjects
"The noble art of kicking hole in the sky"
Oil on plywood 1550 X 1150 mm
"The noble art of kicking hole in the sky"
Is seen in the estonian spy film Traitor from 2019/2020
Trailor from Traitor here. https://youtu.be/DJWkYsyDfl4
In the trailer the painting exposes after 0.36 minute
"The noble art of kicking hole in the sky"
Was used today 2. December 2019, as a backdrop in a TV program about a mayor's overuse, corruption and nepotism. 1,2 hours on estonian TV2.
New in Gallery Objects
"When the Theory of Evolution was taken over by the Theory of Revolution, things got Momentum.”
Hight 30 cm each
1st prize in the The Estonian Commissioning of Artworks competition for Heino Eller Music School in Tartu.
The sculpture “Gift to the Music / Muusika and” was unveiled at a festive occasion at the school on August 26, 2019.
The sculpture is made of brass and corten steel.
A little movie about the reveal here:
New in Gallery Objects
Monument for the Big Man who Ordered Someone to do Something
Hight 98 cm Deep 60 cm Wide 50 cm
Author technic
Head and Tail
Starting on Tuesday, 4 June at 18:00, a new sculpture exhibition will open at the Haus Gallery – Per William Petersen’s Head and Tail – in which both bronze and wooden carved cheerful characters embody existential ideas. Kristina Miskowiak Beckvard, the Danish Ambassador to Estonia, will also be taking part in the opening of the exhibition by an artist who is from Denmark and lives in Estonia.
Life is flashing by – like the images we see from the window of a moving train. Some images will be lost forever. Others we grab onto and remember forever, until they are engraved in our memory. Head and Tail is an exhibition that is trying to catch some of these fleeting ‘images’ of life, to capture the stories before they fade forever.
To remember the faces of people with whom our paths in life have crossed and met again. To find the head and the tail that we have obtained from the experiences in this journey that is life. Heads and Tails was created at a time when time itself let it be born. Things happened right after life was put on hold. After the pause was over, life continued more fiercely than ever before and the exhibition in hand was born, with all the works having been created especially for this exhibition, none of which have ever been displayed before.
Per William Petersen moved from Denmark to Tartu 13 years ago and continued his life in Estonia as a freelance artist. He has always worked as a creator – a silversmith and a graphic designer – and previously studied at the Danish Design School, in Copenhagen. Per is constantly active in expressing the world in different ways. This means he has had to create new techniques and search for new materials to use in his works.
Nothing in his workflow is static – one door opens the next one!
Per’s themes often evolve around relationships between people. Human beings are like a secret. Curiosity and wonder, to find the head and the tail to all of what is happening in the world, both globally and locally. This is Per’s joy and passion. One of his strengths is his sense of humour. Mixing humour with the truth makes it a very powerful tool.
‘Art is not a spectator sport. Spectators are invited when the game is over’, says Per. You are invited to the exhibition, to see the result of the game!
The exhibition will remain open at Haus Gallery until 29 June 2019.
Head and Tail exhibition opening in Haus gallery 4. juni 2019.
The exhibition was opened by The Danish Ambassador in Estonia Kristina Miskowiak Beckvard
The Head is Not the Tail
https://kultuur.postimees.ee/6716478/kui-pea-ei-ole-saba
Per William Petersen’s exhibition „Head and Tail“ is open at Haus Gallery until 26 June 2019.
The Danish-Estonian artist Per William Petersen (1955) gave his first exhibition, “Golden Moments”, in Vanemuine theatre in the same year that he moved to his new home land. He has been singing his own tune in Estonia all these years as a very fertile freelance creator and an active exhibition author. He is a member of both the Tartu Artists’ Union and the Estonian Artists’ Association, also the Estonian Sculptors’ Union. He is the only known Danish artist in Estonia, whereas the number of Estonian artists in Denmark is somewhat larger (Külli Suitso, Silja Salmistu-Støvring, and others).
Petersen’s this year’s exhibitions, „Humor Is Serious Talk“ and „Truth Is Acidic“, displayed in the library of the University of Tartu within the Prima Vista 2019 festival had not yet finished when the author already launched a new exhibition with a brand new set of works at Haus Gallery in Tallinn. Petersen’s versatile creative history includes short films and videos, whether about his creative process, the river Emajõgi – a meaningful link to Denmark, several „accidental“ documentary clips, but this time Haus Gallery initiated a portrait film about the artist himself. The author, Nando Grancell, is planning to show it next year at the Danish Nyheder documentaries festival (https://cphdox.dk). The artist, having lived in Estonia for 13 years, keeps contact with Denmark also through the embassy, thus it was natural for the Danish Ambassador Kristina Miskowiak Beckvard to also attend the opening at Haus Gallery.
Petersen’s life and artistic credo almost sounds like oriental wisdom: „Make your own life, come as close to your life as possible, create the kind of life you want, work for it, be ready to change your life, even drastically. You are born to be someone and it is impossible to escape it; it will happen to you, so make the best of it.“
The title of the exhibition, „Head and Tail“ (Hoved og hale in Danish), refers to the Danish saying used when necessary to make sense of confusing matters or to understand where the head and the tail of the matter is. Petersen’s titles always tend to be polysemic and involve word play. In an attempt to identify the head and tail of the Haus exhibition one might think that the tail would be the water-exuding revolver-shaped sculpture „When ALL is DAD and GUN“. The artist turns the apocalyptic saying „when all is dead and gone“ into an ironic retort against ever-growing aggression in the world. The similar-sounding title „When All is Dad and Gone“ is absurd per se, although the threat of a dominating father figure is definitely perceivable. At the exhibition it creates a necessary artistic tension with the joie de vivre radiating from the rest of the works.
Even in the medium of Per William Petersen’s works it is not always easy to locate heads and tails. If in 2006 Per claimed that painting is his life and that to paint means to tell stories, he went on to reveal various reasons to why his paintings evolved into sculptures. One rationale was to step out of the shadow of his painter father. On the other hand he at one point began to see sculptures in his paintings. At the same time we can say that the paintings have remained as well, but can now be seen in three dimensions simultaneously. So the viewer has the opportunity to still see paintings – in his sculptures. In his own words: „These 3D objects are simply paintings that have jumped off the canvas“ (2012). In 2019 he already draws a line between „UPjects“ that can be hanged on the wall, and sculptures.
Characters wanting to emerge from paintings and become objects can also be perceived or even materialised in the works of other artists, but the sculptor-painter (or object artist – painter) symbiosis is a rather rare mix in art history. The means of expression of these two media are probably different and contrary enough to make the outcome either this or that. The objects and paintscapes of Kaarel Kurismaa are a good example of the thorough detachment of these two media.
I wouldn’t compare Petersen’s handwriting to the history of constructivism or to the complicated outlets of this trend in modern times, or with the so-called Swiss art standard. I wouldn’t compare his revolver piece with, e.g., Claes Oldenburg’s fire arms collection, where whatever elements (a tap, a painting glove, iron tool fragments, all kinds of plastic and wooden bits, even shadows on the wall or puddles on the ground) remind the shape of a revolver, i.e. a collection that presents – in the footprints of Andy Warhol – the image of the gun as a truly American icon.
Per’s previously foreign-looking, sincerely and openly designer-like form conception is increasingly losing its special position and merging with the trend that seems to be historically reserved for Tartu – an applied designer form – because other art forms in Tartu have gradually closed on themselves or been made to close.
By way of counterbalance, Per’s wife Sirje Protsin-Petersen’s role as one of the very few contemporary painters in Tartu – is to maintain the expressionist note. For the unhurried pace and safe environment of Tartu, expression as such has, truth be told, always seemed alien. It is true that even the Pallas school was rather a servant to hedonism. World-pain does not seem to reach the university town on an emotional level. Only through the plane of the sober mind and from a safe distance. Per solves this deep-rooted, slightly ethical dissonance in his own way: “If you mix humour with truth, it becomes a very powerful tool.”
Kaire Nurk
Art historian/artist
Spring Exhibition Tallinn Art Hall, Opening 2019
Represented with Grand Opening I and II
SHOWER OF IDEAS IN TARTU UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
https://tartu.postimees.ee/6694197/mangud-skulptuuridega-ehk-ideede-sadu-raamatukogus
Funny as it may sound, the sculptures of the Tartu-residing Dane Per William Petersen stood out already before the artist started producing the three-dimensional creations he is known for today. Yes, before. Because his paintings were extremely dimensional already at the second half of the previous decade and at the beginning of this one, when it was customary to be confined to a simple two-dimensional picture surface. Everything seemed to be going perfectly, but Per felt he had to do something else because he didn’t want to be just a painter like his father. This feeling had been obvious before, but the wish to take a different path became stronger and stronger, evoking the emergence of the author’s education and earlier experience. As it is, he once studied to be a silversmith and a graphic designer, and therefore can till today see things in their multidimensionality and bring them to life with his own hands just as dictated by his mind’s eye.
I cannot help mentioning that this symbiosis of imagination and handyman was the one thing that my father Ilmar Malin missed especially in the last decades of this life. That he was unable to transfer his mainly drawn ideas into three dimensions. His objects – rams, catapults, etc. – should in fact have been spatial. This is what he said. In addition to my father’s lack of technical skills the realization of these wishes was also hampered by Soviet-time poverty: at least in Tartu there was a scarcity of plywood, of various kinds of screws and nails, and probably of much else as well. With a huge effort it might have been achieved, but so it went…
It makes me glad to see that PWP is and has been playing around with visual SCULPTURES, but sometimes this is accompanied by a fascinating set of conceptual and linguistic games driven to the absurd. The latter ones I would call a byproduct, but one cannot ignore that they help keep us noticing things in a more free(minded) manner. Because things are often different s