Juxtapoz Magazine – Preview: Lamar Peterson’s “Proud Gardener” @ Fredericks & Freiser, NYC

We acquired a preview teaser this early morning of one particular of our most loved painters and earlier collaborator/showcased artist, Lamar Peterson, as he preps a new solo show, Happy Gardener, at Fredericks and Freiser in NYC. 

Occupying a liminal room between the elegant and the quotidian is the inhabited sphere of Peterson’s figures. Shiny, candy-coloured hues fulfill graphic figuration that combines the pursuit of painterly flatness with perspectival depth. Fantastic white smiles and relaxed poses heighten the feeling of uncanny beauty signaling possible anxieties simmering beneath the surface. In this sequence of is effective, Peterson’s exclusive smiling Black gentleman amidst florae continues to be the central linking character who engages in everyday things to do like gardening and strolling by means of mother nature. 

Peterson’s protagonist has served as an specific proxy for the artist. In works like Lavender Fog (2022), the artist maintains his desire in the modern-day flâneur which he developed throughout the Covid-19 pandemic as a usually means of processing the despair, fury, and panic that bubbled close to the twinned community health and fitness crises of coronavirus and murders of Black individuals at the fingers of community officers. In this painting, a man ambles by means of inexperienced room – he is rendered dozens of moments. This modest army walks towards the very same direction: he is mid-stride, projecting at after company, perseverance, and disquietude. Often the unfavorable room concerning his legs is colorfully amplified as if by an invisible flashlight. Other instances, the background looks to clean above the figure, as if drowning his actions. 

In Stacked Pots and Bouquets, a man lies proudly on the edge of a backyard bed replete with lively flowers: the flatness of the perform and the deliberate framing permits the viewers whole accessibility to the arranged splay of goods that topple before him. Having said that, this maneuver also lends by itself to illegibility as it is unclear if it is a flowerbed as prompt visually or if it digs into the floor with the gentleman sitting atop, like we’re viewing a sliced excavation of that which has been buried. In the titular and expertly composed The Happy Gardener, a guy approximating the godly with a smile that matches the blinding white of his outfit requires posture amidst the curvature of Earth. He sits atop the globe, reveling in his power and labors that have brought to fruition the sensitive flowers close to him. 

Other paintings characteristic Peterson’s non-definitive proxy nearer-up, letting the viewers additional personal access to him. In The Spring Crown, the now familiar determine athletics a crown of flowers, collapsing any notion of masculinity that would deny alone the normal pleasures that border his head. In the same way, smooth pleasure is communicated in Yard Salad, as a smiling guy in a purple apron features the literal fruits and veggies of his labors as he prepares a salad and enjoys an apple. In common Peterson trend, the shades are deliberate in their seductiveness and in their refusal to adhere to realism: the man and his salad, alongside with a sliver of history driving him are rendered in an upside T zone of colour though every little thing else is outlined in black, like a shade reserve ready to be loaded in. This strategy unites the artist’s newest is effective on paper, as if daring his audience to full this daily life-giving process of shade. 

The result of the artist’s abundant palette, graphic compositions, orientation of figures in nature, and rigid and angular framing is a rigidity involving what the viewers sees and that which is hinted at. Discovering a pleasurable interest not constantly associated with or afforded to Black adult men, Peterson paints seemingly gleeful gardeners who just take edge of moments of respite. Perhaps the artist is flipping the legacy of the enslaved Black area laborer on its head, reclaiming a copacetic and consensual romantic relationship with land. Peterson’s protagonist appears content, confidently having satisfaction in his lush gardens. Previously mentioned all, he appears as the proprietor normally imaged in repose. The person seems gleeful and noble, nevertheless peaceful, as he lies on his aspect, props his head on his hand, and beams a contagious smile.