Violence of Man: Cleon Peterson’s bold and cruel paintings depict the struggle for power in humanity

They would go to the show, turn around and walk out, totally offensive. ”

Peterson was still in his teens when he went to Platt College in Brooklyn. Myrtle Avenue is a very dark place – Peterson recalls early on a man sitting in a car and blowing his head, but the darkness arouses the depths inside.

“It’s about ten years,” Peterson said. “Every day, just buy drugs, take drugs, experience this social isolation, this isolation, completely beyond normal social boundaries, and witness the madness that happens firsthand – prejudice, violence.”

Among Peterson’s numerous attempts to clean up and restart, he sent his art to Tod Swank (Proskateboarder turned into a distributor) and soon became one of the most popular illustrators in the business, creating signature graphics for Pig Wheels, Zero Skateboards and Foundations. Peterson is immersed in skateboarding counterculture in Southern California, and he and his brother meet all kinds of people, including longtime champion Shepard Fairey. However, Lêthê’s sirens were very strong, and Peterson kept them as clean as possible. Peterson went in and out of the rehabilitation and hospital and ended up in jail. When he goes out, he needs work. Fairey needs a designer to follow the monograph: Shepard Fairey’s art supply and demand.

It started with a 10th year working relationship with Fairey’s Design Agency Studio (the Los Angeles Library just released his limited edition library card with Fairey). Through all this, Peterson continues to perfect and expand his clear vision of the world, usually rising at 4 a.m., painting for hours before arriving at Fairey’s Studio until 6 p.m.

The long days caused losses, but very slowly, and the rest of the world began to pay attention. “At first, it was like people were scared,” Peterson recalls. “They would come to the show, turn around and go out, and be totally offensive.”

In an art world often driven by pure aesthetic appeal, Peterson’s reality may be too much cognitive dissonance. Online, critics respond with disdainful sulfuric acid—sometimes Peterson exploits women’s image rather than studying the moral, moral and historical issues he raises.

However, over the past few years, Peterson’s work has become increasingly difficult to ignore. The paintings are fascinating and tragic, seemingly ripped off the headlines, even those who may have turned around resonate.

Peterson recalls a particular moment when he felt the most harsh transformation. It was 2014. Russia is preparing to annex Crimea, and Peterson is invited to attend the Katovitch Street Art Festival in Poland. While painting murals on murals (as his subjects are rarely enthusiastically received by local homeowners, he was welcomed by several older people nearby – according to Peterson, he made sense in rejecting street art, simply because it changed the traditional sensitivity of their community. But they liked the work because it spoke to them.

Last year, the New York Times asked for two works for the documentary newspaper, running two immediately after the Walter Scott shooting in South Carolina. Another, printed with Gregory Orr’s column Mississippi Nembor, not only marked a widespread acceptance of Peterson’s work, but also gained a growing understanding of his perception of the world.

“It’s incredible to make you respect your work and engage in a broader culture in an uncompromising way,” said Peterson, who received two other requests last month.

But it’s not always that easy.

Last year, before the November attack in Paris, Peterson was invited by JR’s 99print to France to produce custom stone carvings with old-fashioned publishers used by Picasso, Milo and Chagall. This is a difficult and arduous process that makes people psychologically painful in the events that occur. The release of prints (foreseeable bleak scenes of “justice”) was respectfully postponed. But when the curator of Peterson’s scheduled Paris exhibition asked him to transfer from violent images, Peterson chose to cancel it.

“There is no better time to address these topics than when such topics happen,” Peterson said in frustration. The show’s titled “Verd” was open in Belgium, centered on an ominous gleaming sculpture.

Before opening, Peterson appeared on the front page of Antwerp’s Daily, Stadt, to speak publicly about the role of fear, terrorism and the art, especially the favorite: William Turner’s Slave Ship.

Peterson said in a time: “Like the “slave ship,” or Picasso’s “Gernica,” Dostoevsky’s crime and punishment, the kiss to the spider woman… the kiss of the kiss…”, “These works express internal crises in collective culture or the difficult times that mark difficult times, they force people to face the real world they live in.

Shortly after the verdict ended, Brussels was attacked by three suicide bombers.

Religious and cultural fanatics have been a common theme for Peterson’s crafty exhibition Purity, which opened in Hong Kong in January. Peterson’s most ambitious performance to date is easy, an immersive swordsman composed of twenty large paintings inspired by religious works from the Renaissance. But despite the chaotic nature of their muse-violence, conflict, destruction and our ladies’ lawlessness, the pure work makes us less reminded of Caravaggio’s bloody beheading, and more of an accessible observation of Goya.

“I’m not going to change the world’s mission,” Peterson pointed out carefully. “The truth is, I really don’t like being a good person…I just painted what I saw.”

This is a fact that we are unlikely to forget.

This year, between playing with his three kids, Peterson is preparing for a show in New York and Paris, as well as the sunshine at the Tokyo Diesel Gallery.

This article originally appeared in Hi-Fructose Issue 40, and the issue is sold out. Support our publications and get a new subscription here!