Peter Stephens (b. 1958)creates paintings and works on paper that are influenced by an interest in cosmology, physics, and the patterns that dictate our natural world. Marked by bright, bold color, and hypnotic interwoven grids, each work is a composition of solid or gradient patches of color, overlaid with meticulously hand-drawn lines on custom wood panels. Likened to equations or formulas, the quantities, sequences, and rhythms in his work are ruled by a system that is as much fixed as it is chance. The resulting works are multilayered, undulating landscapes of color that unfold as the eye moves across the work.

Stephens holds a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL. He has exhibited widely across the US, with exhibitions at Nina Freudenheim Gallery, Buffalo, NuArt Gallery, Sante Fe, New Mexico, Zolla/Lieberman, Chicago, Buffalo AKG Art Gallery, and Burchfield Penney Art Center, among many others. His work is held in the permanent collections of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the Burchfield Penney Art Center, the Brooklyn Museum, the Castellani Art Museum (Lewiston, NY), the Fenimore Art Museum (Cooperstown, NY), and numerous private collections. Peter lives and works in Buffalo, NY.

SELECT Exhibitions

• You Are My Favorite Work of Art, Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, New York, NY, 2024

• Rational & Emotional Interrelations: Peter Stephens and Rose Masterpol, Nüart Gallery, Santa Fe, NM, 2023

• Love Potion, Rivalry Projects, Buffalo, NY, 2022

• Dante’s Cardigan, David Richard Gallery, New York, NY, 2020

• Elemental / Ornamental, Eleven Twenty Projects, Buffalo, New York, 2019

• Elemental / Ornamental, Nina Freudenheim Gallery, Buffalo, New York, 2019

• The Paris Years, Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, Chicago, Illinois, 2018

• Peter Stephens, William Campbell Contemporary Art, Fort Worth, Texas, 2018

• At This Time, Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo, New York, 2018

• Californians, R. B. Stevenson Gallery, San Diego, California, 2016       

• Amid/In WNY, Hallwalls, Buffalo, New York, 2015

• American Masters, Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, New York, 2013        

• Surveyor, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, 2011

Public COLLECTIONS

• Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, New York

• Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York

• Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo, New York

• Castellani Art Museum, Niagara Falls, New York

• Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, New York