Scott Peterman
Born 1968, Bellefonte, PA, lives and works in Hollis, ME
Trickey Lake, 2002, type C print, 10/10, Museum Purchase, 2002.16
Scott Peterman photographs ice-fishing shacks in a seemingly straightforward manner. These "grown-up clubhouses" are dragged out onto lakes every winter in northern New England, where the artist works. Always positioned at the center of the lens of his large format camera, the structures' uncomplicated shapes and simple colors accentuate both their commonality and their differences. According to the artist, the shacks “…are entirely utilitarian in their purpose, yet put together in surprisingly ingenious ways, appearing as crude minimalist sculpture.”
One such ordinary shack is transformed into geometric abstraction in Trickey Lake; a square floats in space, barely anchored on the horizon, and recedes into the whiteout of the Maine winter landscape. Almost colorless, Peterman's ever so subtle photograph—of this silent and isolated structure that was never meant to be anything but temporary and functional—instills a lasting impression of ethereal beauty. Peterman's work was purchased from The 2002 DeCordova Annual Exhibition.
