Peter Chevalier was born in Karlsruhe in 1953. He studied at the University of Fine Arts in Braunschweig (HBK) where he studied under Hermann Albert and Alfred Rust (1976–1980), the former encouraging him to move to Berlin after graduation. The transition proved successful, as Chevalier was rewarded five years later with the Sprengel Prize for Fine Art from the Lower Saxony Sparkasse Foundation in Hanover. The artist now teaches painting in the Art Department at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart, and has done so since 1992.
Chevalier’s early work is tinged with a metaphysical quality in his compositions. Semi-figurative elements (houses, planes, stumps of pillars, light bulbs, bones, etc.) are deconstructed and subsequently reassembled into disproportionate and scale-inappropriate collages. His approach – aligned with the post-minimalist trend towards the rediscovery of the medium of painting – purposefully contrasts with the then dominant conceptualist method. Neo-expressionist throughout most of his career, Chevalier borrowed the insistent dark lines of his pre-war predecessors, the vibrant colours of his American counterparts and the futuristic motifs of his Italian neighbours, all while remaining true to the academic tradition of oil painting.
The end of the 1980s and early 1990s saw the advent of more explicitly figurative subjects, more tactile and organic in nature. With the return to reality came gloom and bleakness, his subjects and their treatment growing sombre. Interestingly, Chevalier travelled backwards in time, borrowing methodological cues from avant-garde surrealism. This anachronistic approach is explained by Germany’s proximity to surrealism’s birthplace, France, and the movement’s stifling by National Socialism’s propaganda. From the modern movement, Chevalier has borrowed the lack of planning and improvised, undefined strategy, resulting in intuitive, unpredictable creations guided by the artist’s subconscious.
Chevalier lives and works in Berlin and Stuttgart.
