Meet Peter Klemm - Painter

You can tell by the glint in his eye that he has something to say.  Let me introduce you to him. 

From an early age, Peter had a pencil in hand, creating his drawings while his father painted in his studio.  The passion for creating art has clearly been passed on.  Peters website is right here to take a closer look: https://www.pklemm.com/

In the late 70's, Peter got serious about painting on canvas and experimented with many different genres of painting. About this same time, Peter's father encouraged him to find a financially viable career, which led to studies in Architectural/structural/civil design.  This route had Peter designing renderings for large projects such as dam design's for BC Hydro.  

Over the years, Peter never lost his passion for a pure art expression and never stopped experimenting with various media until he landed on oil paint as his preferred medium. 

Light and shadow are what draws him into the scene.  What I notice when I look at Peter's landscapes or portraits is that there is a real sense of the moment, capturing the mood and essence of that particular moment.  The initial inspiration is something he can recreate on the canvas.  

​"I want to draw the viewer into the scene." Peter Klemm

Deep Cove - a local favourite spot for many living in the Lower Mainland. ​

This piece just sold. I'm not surprised.  The light draws you right into this wonderful scene. Many comments from viewers were that they recognized this scene right away, they used to live there, they could feel the space just as they remember when they were there. Very cool that a painting captures the essence of a place. 

Peter goes on to tell me that this piece started out as a potential commission, but when the buyer changed his mind to a portrait instead, Peter picked up this gorgeous image to create as a stock piece because he was so taken by the scene. 

Peter is a studio artist, which means collecting source photos from nature and taking them back to the studio where he can spend the time developing the details that he really enjoys. 

As an architectural draftsman, rendering realistic images from sources such as topographical maps, utilized his skills to take a flat image and bring it to life in a three dimensional, realistic way.  This skill certainly continues to be a used in his oil painting practice. From his time doing renderings he used air brush, gouache, and watercolour to create the realism.  The blending of skills are invaluable to his technique in his oil paintings.  How to blend the sky, or create the ripples of water as an example.

Peter - In my current work I'm moving to get a bit looser, rather than all the fine details with a brush, using a palette knife to render things such as rocks. 

Peter - My palette has always been a very limited palette.  You will consistently find Burnt umber, Raw Sienna, Prussian Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Cadmium red light, Cad yellow light, Naples Yellow, Indian Red, Titanium White, Magenta, no black.  I make my own black by mixing other colours.  In mixing my blacks I can alter the depth and feel of the blacks versus what comes directly from the tube of commercial oil paints.  

His first landscape painting, pictured below, from the early 1980's, titled "Mosquito lake", is the muse for creating his landscapes since then.  The smell the pine needles. The feel of the sunshine while standing in the shadowed forest brings the sense to life. Peter said he will never sell this piece.  It's too important. 

I think it's important to hold on to pieces, in a personal collection, when they inspire the paintings you are creating. 

What are your ideas about composition?  I try to keep the horizons, not in the middle of the canvas, if it's possible. Actually, I try to keep everything out of the dead middle of the canvas.  I want to take the viewer through the image.  Enter at one point and move them through the scene, leaving the image at a different point. 

Where do you see your work, size wise? Most of your sizes are 18 x 24". Is that your preference?

Peter - I did one larger piece,  30 x 40", and it sold within the week of hanging it in the Pacific Arts Market on Granville Street in Vancouver,BC. It's been a great venue to show and sell my work.  (Unfortunately they will be moving this location to Vancouver Island.) Generally, it's about a months worth of work for each one of these gorgeous paintings.  The larger ones take a bit longer due to their size. 

The Federation Gallery is also a great place for hanging and selling my work.  (The Federation Gallery is located at 1271 Cartwright Street, on Granville Island.  You can see the current show at www.artists.ca) Often pieces are sold from the preview email, which gets sent out ahead of the show being hung in the gallery. In the last few years, he has been accepted into almost every show that he has submitted to.  Which really is a statement of the quality of the pieces he is submitting. Each show at the Federation is juried into the show by different jurors each time.   

Recently, I was asked to display my work in Time Square, New York City.  My paintings are shown on a huge mega screen right in the middle of Time Square.  The marquis is a full story high and about 40 feet wide.  Here is the link to see the full video clip on Facebook. Click here. 

Where are you heading with your career from here? Is there a scene or something that you are really drawn to create?
 
Peter - I seem to have themes that I explore for a series of paintings, such as the light bouncing off the ocean, or light streaming through the trees in a dark forest.  Once I explore those enough, then I'm drawn to the next thing. 

"We cannot create our art for the viewer, it has got to be for us, first, and ultimately that will be good for the viewer." Rick Rubin

Peter - You paint it because you love it, and you want to do it. If you sell it then it clearly resonates with the buyer.  If a piece resonates with you first, it's meaningful, and will likely also be meaningful for the viewer/buyer.

Peter - When I was done working with Hydro, in the very beginning, I would go to the disco and do portraits of the staff and patrons.  Then I'd hang the pencil portraits in a small gallery in the building where I worked. They sold pretty well.  

Mastering portraits as Peter has done, really honed his skills of observation; the proportions, where the nose sits, where the chin sits etc.  The spacing between the eyes and the nose is consistent in people's faces.  There is variation between people, but the placement of the features is consistent.  These rules are essential to creating realistic portraits of people 

Ciel - funny story.  When I was in art college we had a male model who was blind.  After the morning session in the studio, we all started to head out for lunch.  The model grabbed his seeing eye dog and headed out to the cafeteria.  He didn't put his robe on again. He was blind. It didn't matter to him who saw him naked.  He sat in the cafeteria buck naked having his lunch.  Bit shocking, but whatever. 

On one occasion, Peter was getting hung up on the details of his portrait drawings and really wanted to loosen up and get quicker.  His girlfriend grabbed a kitchen timer, set it for 10 minutes, and told him that's all the time he had to create a portrait.  It was a great practice to focus and get the marks down quickly.  Even in quick studies there is a sense of precision in Peter's mark making.  

Self-portrait done earlier this year.

An early self-portrait done at age 20.

The loosening up helped, but in the oil paintings it really is part of Peter's style to be detailed and precise in what he is creating.  To see more of Peter's work or to discuss a commission with him, go to his website. https://www.pklemm.com

I hope you have enjoyed this introduction to another wonderful local artist.  Leave a comment below.  I'd love to hear your thoughts.