Peter Wray RE - Open Studios

Collaborative, semi-figurative paintings in oil and mixed-media and collagraph/carborundum prints, along with raku, stoneware and porcelain ceramics

Although Peter Wray was trained as a painter, he also spent many years working in printmaking, and his experimental approach to graphic processes have fed through into his painting practice. The integration of graphic methodology into the activity of painting is a natural development, and it is this combination of approach which gives his work its distinctive style.

His fascination for texture, colour and composition, combined with his intrigue and enjoyment in the nature of materials and processes, result in semi-abstract pieces which reflect his creative journey where printmaking and painting feed off, and feed into, each other: “prints about painting, and paintings about prints”.

Peter spent many years working almost exclusively within printmaking, where he explored his fascination for texture, colour and composition via innovative experimentation with Collagraph and Carborundum printmaking processes. He has gained several national awards for his work in this area and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers (RE). His work is in many private and corporate collections worldwide.

He has always had a love for clay as a creative medium, ever since his student days, back in the 1970s, when he would slip into the college Ceramics studio at weekends and ‘play with clay’, rejoicing in its versatility as a medium and captivated by the way clay reveals new characteristics and potentials throughout its drying process.

In recent years, he has returned to ceramics and, although not technically skilled, brings to it many years of experimentation in other media, revelling in the alchemy of both Raku and Stoneware firing. He loves to explore the vast domain of handmade glazes, colouring oxides and body stains and endeavours to bring the results of these investigations into his work in an exciting and original fashion.