Peter Walker

Bio: Peter Walker has spent over 50 years designing public open spaces worldwide. During that time he has periodically made sculptural pieces of various materials, such as plywood, Masonite, metal, and PVC composition board. In his teaching at Harvard he gave a series of classes, field trips, and seminars that came to be known as investigations of landscape viewed as art. These efforts are described in his books Invisible Gardens and Minimalist Gardens written with historian Melanie Simo and Leah Levy respectively and “Process Architecture #85 – Peter Walker: Landscape as Art.” Like his designs, many of these gardens are expressed in minimalist sculptural figures that emphasize flatness, repetition, and linear formalities found in European Classical gardens of the15th, 16th, and 17th centuries. Since the 1980s, he has been collecting minimalist paintings and sculptures and has periodically made original paintings and wall pieces. He has designed a number of gardens to display modern works of art including the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, Texas and Glenstone Museum in Potomac, Washington. He has now produced several series of wall pieces and collages derived from his interest in classical gardens and the minimalist art of the 1960s and 1970s.

Statement: Crosswalk (Off the Wall Series): This piece is cut from material of half-inch thickness mounted another half-inch off the wall and floor. The piece has a white polished surface that reflects light from windows or electric light found in most interior spaces. The piece explores the play between two-and three-dimensional reading. Here, the piece follows the wall and then crosses the floor into real space. In this way, it is perhaps post-Minimal. Zig Zag Fence with Gates: This piece is cut from material of half-inch thickness mounted another half-inch off the wall. The piece has a white polished surface that reflects light from windows or electric light found in most interior spaces. The surface implies folding, contrasting the pictorial reality with the physical flatness. In this way, it is perhaps post-Minimal.