Current Obsession: painter Peter Harris stalks the city in his eerie portraits of Toronto after dark
Peter Harris loves the Gardiner. And the city’s gas stations. And the boxy ’70s rec centres most Torontonians try to ignore. He also has a thing for cargo vans and vacant parking lots and sagging telephone wires. For the past five years, Harris, who studied painting at the University of Waterloo, has been prowling Toronto in the night, snapping pictures of its quieter corners and then transforming them into fantastically spooky streetscapes. His pursuit of the perfect image occasionally gets him chased off by security guards unamused by his artistic voyeurism—he has been known to scale eight-foot factory fences to get a photo. (The first rule of photo prowling: easier to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission.) In his Etobicoke studio, he uses the photographs as references for oil paintings that depict the city as a creepy noir anti-paradise where something sinister always seems about to happen. The 39-year-old Harris is attracted to locations with a morbid history, like the Humber Lakeshore Campus, built on the grounds of a former lunatic asylum. His latest solo show presents 16 of his nocturnal vignettes, each painted with uncanny realism, yet stripped of people and most other signs of life. Edward Hopper is an obvious influence, though Harris insists his work owes just as much to the Group of Seven. (Early in his career, he specialized in painting trees.) Nods to the Group pop up throughout the collection, cheekily drawing a parallel between their great wilds and Harris’s own. For him, our crumbling expressway is every bit as majestic as any Rocky Mountain peak.
ART
Peter Harris
Mira Godard Gallery
March 2 to 30
- 193518
- <em>Dundas Garden:</em> To capture this image, part of a series of Chinatown paintings, Harris paced Dundas near Spadina, waiting for the scene to be mostly clear of cars and people
- Current Obsession: painter Peter Harris
- Current Obsession: painter Peter Harris
- https://torontolife.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/current-obsession-painter-peter-harris-01-96x96.jpg
- https://torontolife.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/current-obsession-painter-peter-harris-01.jpg
- https://torontolife.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/current-obsession-painter-peter-harris-01.jpg
- 624
- 670
- https://torontolife.com/city/peter-harris-toronto-painter/slide/current-obsession-painter-peter-harris-01/
- current-obsession-painter-peter-harris-01
- 0
- 0
- 193513
- <em>Isolation Peak</em>: The gallery in the painting (with its iconic Group of Seven landscape) doesn’t exist—Harris created it using a building in his south Etobicoke neighbourhood as the model
- Current Obsession: painter Peter Harris
- Current Obsession: painter Peter Harris
- https://torontolife.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/current-obsession-painter-peter-harris-02-96x96.jpg
- https://torontolife.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/current-obsession-painter-peter-harris-02.jpg
- https://torontolife.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/current-obsession-painter-peter-harris-02.jpg
- 624
- 218
- https://torontolife.com/city/peter-harris-toronto-painter/slide/current-obsession-painter-peter-harris-02/
- current-obsession-painter-peter-harris-02
- 0
- 0
- 193514
- <em>Twilight Drive 7:45 p.m.</em>: To get traffic pictures, Harris Velcroes his camera to the dashboard of his old pickup truck and clicks the shutter while steering with the other hand. He takes roughly 800 shots in a single outing to get one or two he likes. This image is from St. Clair West
- Current Obsession: painter Peter Harris
- Current Obsession: painter Peter Harris
- https://torontolife.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/current-obsession-painter-peter-harris-03-96x96.jpg
- https://torontolife.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/current-obsession-painter-peter-harris-03.jpg
- https://torontolife.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/current-obsession-painter-peter-harris-03.jpg
- 624
- 275
- https://torontolife.com/city/peter-harris-toronto-painter/slide/current-obsession-painter-peter-harris-03/
- current-obsession-painter-peter-harris-03
- 0
- 0
- 193515
- <em>Gas Station 2 a.m.</em>: Harris visited this location at various times of day to capture details in different light. He then faded out the surroundings to make the station look like a bright beacon in the middle of nowhere
- Current Obsession: painter Peter Harris
- Current Obsession: painter Peter Harris
- https://torontolife.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/current-obsession-painter-peter-harris-04-96x96.jpg
- https://torontolife.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/current-obsession-painter-peter-harris-04.jpg
- https://torontolife.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/current-obsession-painter-peter-harris-04.jpg
- 624
- 555
- https://torontolife.com/city/peter-harris-toronto-painter/slide/current-obsession-painter-peter-harris-04/
- current-obsession-painter-peter-harris-04
- 0
- 0
 In his Etobicoke studio, he uses the photographs as references for oil paintings that depict the city as a creepy noir anti-paradise where something sinister always seems about to happen. The 39-year-old Harris is attracted to locations with a morbid history, like the Humber Lakeshore Campus, built on the grounds of a former lunatic asylum. His latest solo show presents 16 of his nocturnal vignettes, each painted with uncanny realism, yet stripped of people and most other signs of life. Edward Hopper is an obvious influence, though Harris insists his work owes just as much to the Group of Seven. (Early in his career, he specialized in painting trees.) Nods to the Group pop up throughout the collection, cheekily drawing a parallel between their great wilds and Harris’s own. For him, our crumbling expressway is every bit as majestic as any Rocky Mountain peak.
ART
Peter Harris
Mira Godard Gallery
March 2 to 30
[gallery exclude="193512" columns="4"]){kind=link}
Show opening saturday march 2nd, 2 to 5 pm , mira godard gallery, meet the artist!