// Artist Bio

Peter Eastman - Born 1976, Lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa.

Deep Chine Paintings

Deep Chine is the group name I have given to these forest paintings, it simply means a deep kloof or valley. It is the name of a piece of land I have visited since childhood and is part of a larger nature reserve in a remote part of South Africa where all my forest paintings are set. This steep and difficult to access river valley is filled with indigenous old growth trees and vegetation.

It is an ongoing series of paintings of this place. The paintings are constantly evolving as I look at the forest in different ways, always in flux, as it grows and dies and remakes itself, its fragile mudstone cliffs constantly eroding and collapsing, subtly changing each time i visit. When the logging happened in the area in the 19th century the trees on the upper parts of the land were taken, but down in the steep kloofs they were inaccessible, so the ancient forest persists, completely undisturbed. There is however a constant pendulous feeling that this and other similar wild places are at threat of human expansion.

The colours of the Deep Chine paintings are at a remove from the actual colours of the forest. This abstract, two-tone aspect, combined with the matte, chalky texture of the paint, is a muted reference to the kind of mark-making we know from childhood chalkboards. This ephemeral chalk like mark a reference to the ever changing landscape

SOLO EXHIBTIONS & PRESENTATIONS

2023 - Even rocks melt in the Sun, Barnard Gallery, Cape Town

2019 - Tangled Hierarchies, SMAC Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa.

2017 - Coldstream, SMAC Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa.

2015 - Surface Light, SMAC Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa.

2014 - Deep Chine, SMAC Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa.
Seeing the Forest for the Trees, SMAC Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa.

2012 - Buried in Black & White, The Pot Luck Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa.

2010 - Life is Short, WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town, South Africa.
For the Term of Their Natural Lives, COOP, Johannesburg, South Africa.

2008 - Shadow Paintings, Obert Contemporary, Johannesburg, South Africa.

2007 - Supernature, WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town, South Africa.

2006 - Black Paintings, Obert Contemporary, Johannesburg, South Africa.

2004 - Reflective, STEVENSON, Cape Town, South Africa.

GROUP EXHIBITIONS & PRESENTATIONS

2024 - Xmas In July, 131 A GALLERY, Cape Town, South Africa, Merging Matter, Oude Leeskamer, Stellenbosch, South Africa
Winter show, Everard Read gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2023 - Cape Town Art Fair (Barnard Gallery), Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC), Echo, Barnard Gallery, Cape Town, Recent Work from the residency, Lion Sands gallery, South Africa
2020 - A show of solidarity, SMAC gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2019 - Wish You Were Here, SMAC Gallery, Cape Town, South, Africa.
2018 - FNB Joburg Art Fair (SMAC Gallery), Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg, South Africa.