ARTWORK SAGA 16:

RAYMOND PETERSEN PAINTINGS
Milton, DE

"My paintings are acrylics on wood panels. I am fascinated by organic form and color. My subjects are mostly plants, especially trees. In doing my art, I find that other organic forms, frequently suggestive of animals and people, subliminally appear in the paintings. I call this emergence of form, as others have, biomorphic art - literally “life-form” art." 

Ray is a dear, old friend. Since retirement four years ago, he has painted in acrylics. He was a botany professor at Howard University for many years. Thus his painting tend to reflect plants.

My first painting of his:

WINTER ROSE HIPS, CORAL SEA

"The vermillion rose hips of the multiflora rose in the field across the street from my studio in Milton, Delaware, are presented here like sea urchin eggs dispersed in a tropical sea."

This painting, though I loved it, I gave to Bill Murphy for his drab living room. He loves it. It's quite large:

ARROWLEAF - EARLY MORNING LIGHT
"Sunlight passes through the diaphanous expanding leaf blades of the arrowleaf plant. These are growing in the swamp across the street from my studio in Milton, Delaware."

This last painting I got at his art fair. I just couldn't resist:

SMARTWEED SUMMER

"Smartweed is a plant of late summer into the fall. This work is of smartweed and light along the Rio Grande River south of Albuquerque, New Mexico."