Peter Donovan: A Homecoming

Peter Donovan: A Homecoming | Foyer Gallery

18 October 2014 - 30 November 2014

It is fitting that Peter Donovan’s ‘A Homecoming’ is shown at Hastings City Art Gallery, given that Peter’s first exhibition was held at a the 242 Gallery in Hastings in 1991, with Christine Conrad and Michael Smither. Peter was also a finalist in the Norsewear Art Awards here in Hastings in 2003.

‘A Homecoming’ is a personal and intimate view of a life lived deeply grounded in Hawke’s Bay. Sweet memories of the environment and people permeate this exhibition, which memorialises the past; its essence recaptures the light of moments in and of a life to become present, evoking the feeling of meaning not lost or squandered.

Sometimes described as ‘naïve’ in style, Donovan’s form of expression on the flat plane refuses to, as Wolfe (Wolfe, R 1997:7-13 Viking) suggests, to be constrained by conventional rules countering with energy, invention and imagination. Here, memory is used to express subjects with clarity and completeness, a ‘knowing’. This work moves beyond the boundaries of frame and medium, impervious to academic and market forces. This is the art of the people.