PETER FERGUSON
Melbourne, Australia | Born 1956
Peter Ferguson is an Australian painter and stained-glass artist best known for his exuberant, highly coloured figurative paintings and his association with Melbourne's influential Roar Studios.
Ferguson studied at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne during the late 1970s before travelling extensively through Europe. Exposure to European modernism, particularly the expressive freedom of artists associated with CoBrA and Art Brut, helped shape the spontaneous and intensely coloured visual language that became characteristic of his work.
In 1982 Ferguson became one of the founding artists of Roar Studios, the artist-run gallery and studio established in a former shoe factory in Brunswick Street, Fitzroy. Roar provided an alternative to Melbourne's established gallery system and became known for energetic figurative painting, vivid colour and an intentionally raw, expressive approach.
Ferguson's paintings are immediately recognisable for their lively combination of figures, birds, trees, buildings and landscape. Often described as naïve or figurative expressionist in character, his compositions combine spontaneous drawing, dynamic shapes and brilliant colour to create densely animated scenes.
Art was also part of Ferguson's family heritage. His father, John Ferguson, was an artist and stained-glass designer, and Peter and his brother Andrew continued the family's stained-glass tradition.
Ferguson has exhibited extensively in Australia, including exhibitions associated with Roar Studios, William Mora Galleries and Coventry Gallery in Sydney. His work is represented in public and private collections including the National Gallery of Australia, Artbank, Shepparton Art Museum, the Sir William Dobell Foundation and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
