Peter Cleverley is a nationally recognized artist who paints from his studio in Kakanui, drawing upon his bodily relationship with place, to make comment on the wider human condition. His association with the Forrester gallery spans more than 37 years with seven solo exhibitions and a representative selection of nine works in the Forrester Gallery permanent collection.

Cleverley has been described as a landscape painter who uses the land as spiritual symbol. Over his career Cleverley has also consistently used other symbols: the vase, cut flowers, water vessel, anchor, cross, dog head, human head or mask and words. The result has been works which guide our seeing intellectually and didactically – asking us to find the spiritual and the transcendent in the everyday.

 ‘creativity is rooted in bodily motion and blooms from it in myriad forms that ‘sing the world’. - Merleau-Ponty.

Cleverley’s most recent exhibition at the Forrester Gallery was in Summer 2017-8, you can view it here

FROM PETER CLEVERLEY:

'Pippa & I are well & good. We find ourselves very fortunate to be where we are living. Fresh produce in our garden & able to exercise in such a magnificent coastal space. I'm amazed at how quickly nature regains some of the space with less humans & vehicles round & about. Pippa is working from home, so apart from on- line meetings in the house with alot of people I don't know & the rescheduling of the Patti Smith concert, any changes have made us think more...about the (necessary). perhaps.

Take care. I'm off to the studio. Yaaay. I am enjoying more time in my studio, working towards two exhibitions in October and November 2020 at R.D.S. gallery, Dunedin and Chambers gallery, Christchurch,'

Image: Peter Cleverley, Knitted flowers- Bangkok. 2020, gouache & watercolour on paper, 275x 380mm

Painting remembering this beautiful young lady in the Siam region of Bangkok,Thailand... wretchedly twisted body from cerebral palsy.., in a decrepit high-chair on wheels...radiant face,smiling & laughing… hands busy knitting these exquisite flowers. Beautiful colours… very realistic. Every day I passed her I'd buy one...after purchasing two (such a little amount for such beautiful art).  I asked her if she would be offended if I paid her what I thought their value was to me...when I gave her that money she wept...I was so humbled.. I have seen her again in the same place in 2016...she will be there today...wonderful clever person.

This work will be on display at the Chambers Gallery.

Image: Peter Cleverley, Frances Hodgkins hand painting so wrong they are right, 2020, gouache & watercolour on paper, 275x380mm]. For RDS Gallery.