Over the Influence, Paris, is pleased to present Cruelty, Cleon Peterson’s first exhibition with the gallery, and fourth exhibition with Over the Influence worldwide.
In Cruelty, Cleon Peterson’s bleak vision grows bleaker and darker than ever before. Over the past 15 years, the Los Angeles-based artist has depicted a culture of atavism, rage, violence and exploitative power dynamics that have presciently tracked recent developments in political discourse both in the United States and, indeed, around the world.
ARTISTS
B. 1973, Seattle, WA, USA. Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Cleon Peterson’s chaotic and violent paintings show clashing figures symbolizing a struggle between power and submission in the fluctuating architecture of contemporary society. Peterson’s work acknowledges the demons within us and sheds light on the inherent violence of civilization. His allegorical works contrast good with evil, and violence with victim, in the tradition of Greco-Roman gladiator-motif vases, Francisco Goya’s “The Disasters of War (1810-1820),” and Eugene Delacroix’s “The Rape of Sabine Women (1850).”
