Peter Cole Bio

Peter Cole was born in Upstate New York and lived and grew up in a small town named Avon. In 1980 he came West to Attend the Kansas City Art Institute. Majoring in Print Making, he graduated with a BFA in 1984 and immediately found employment with an advertising company and subsequently with a custom display manufacturer. Throughout this entire period of time, he did freelance illustration.

As a student at the Art institute, one of his favorite assignments was to go to the art museum and sketch from a painting. Through out the repetition of these exercises and the process of observation and drawing he became aware of the fact that he was experiencing the painting in an entirely different way then he would have been had he simply been looking at it in a passive manner. Recreating the observations and experiences of other artists into his own experience taught him a great deal. Dynamics of composition, pattern, form, color movements and light became more readily apparent. To a large extent, these lessons and experiences made up the foundation for the pleasure and excitement he gets from painting today.

In the field of fine art, there are endless choices for self-expression. However, nature (in whatever form) is overwhelming enough for Peter so his choice has been to concentrate his focus on attempting to communicate his experience within it. Whether it’s a landscape, face, or still life, its very similar to those experiences he so enjoyed as a student.