‘SEEKING ARMAGEDDON’ by Peter Hanmer

Seeking Armageddon
Exhibition by Peter Hanmer
15th October – 12th November
Preview: Friday 14th October 5pm
Curated by Jed Buttress

This October, we have a fantastic new gallery exhibition! ‘Seeking Armageddon’ is the debut solo gallery exhibition by local award-winning artist Peter Hanmer. You can expect apocalyptic dioramas, intricate ink drawings and more than a few surprises. And you’re invited! Join us for the Preview on Friday 14th October at 5pm!

‘Seeking Armageddon’ brings together over 10 years of apocalyptic musings in sculpture, installation, and ink from award winning Northeast based visual artist Peter Hanmer. Evoking the spirit of Gulliver’s Travels, Hanmer blurs the line between fantasy and reality, presenting multiple miniature Dioramic vistas populated by humanoid protagonists.

Like static theatres, these works frame apocalyptic narratives and immerse the audience in them. A beaked prophet promises salvation from a tub, masked gentry play with fire, skeletons march and a rubber duck poses as the source of divine power or divine irony. Diorama is complimented by pen and ink in a series of pointed drawn ‘observations’, complete with their own rogue’s gallery. The otherness of the protagonists both 2D and 3D provides a distance for the viewer who observes a different yet identifiable character; an allegory for themselves.

Inspired by the writings of Plato, John the Elder, Rousseau and Žižek, ‘Seeking Armageddon’ stages very human apocalypses; ecological, technological and democratic, and proposes that our reality is a political reality made of images, slogans and fantasies.

Based in North East England, sculptor and installation artist Peter Hanmer studied at the University for the Creative Arts and Newcastle University, where he received a BA (Hons) (2014) and Masters of Fine Art with Distinction (2018) respectively.

Drawing on varied interests including history, philosophy and storytelling; Hanmer creates allegorical, dystopian and Fantastical sculptural works chiefly in miniature. These reflect his interest in the power of art as a cultural and political critique, presenting intricately-sculpted worlds imbued with meaning.

Winner of the Gillian Dickinson North East Young Sculptor of The Year award 2017, he has been shortlisted for multiple awards and has exhibited his work worldwide. Selected exhibitions include; Plato’s Lair (SOLO), Cheeseburn Sculpture Garden (2018); Digital Citizen – The Precarious Subject, the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead (2019) and The Discerning eye, Mall Galleries, London (2014).

Jed Buttress is an award-winning artist and curator based in Newcastle upon Tyne, with a First Class BA (Hons) degree in Fine Art, from Newcastle University.

He has curated over one hundred exhibitions, independently and with organisations such as NOPHOTO, The Royal Photographic Society and the Wellcome Trust Centre for Mitochondrial Research, and has curated artworks by artists such as Antony Gormley and Lubaina Himid.

He has recently been appointed as Curator and Programme Co-ordinator at the Newcastle Arts Centre, and has been responsible for the curation of recent shows such as the Documentary Photographer of the Year 2021: Touring Exhibition (May 2022) and Liz Atkin: Drawings, Collage and Writing – A Retrospective (June 2022).

Peter Hanmer: SEEKING ARMAGEDDON opens 
15th October – 12th November
Open 10:00 – 17:00, Mondays to Saturdays
Preview: Friday 14th October 5pm

Newcastle Arts Centre
67 Westgate Road, NE1 1SG
0191 261 5618
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