My art practice began its formation in a critical but supportive, cross disciplinary climate in the years before my university studies. I was a member of an active network of artists, musicians, performers and filmmakers in Milwaukee. This experience instilled in me an awareness of how community and arts practices are vitally linked. It also underlined for me how individuality can find support and thrive in the context of the collective.
Based on the model of the artist network, my classroom is an active and interactive space that draws from and builds upon the experiences of all students as a collective entity. In this way, individual student concerns are woven into the curriculum.
My teaching style is collaborative in spirit, shifting between group activities and working with individuals.
In studio classes, my students cultivate self-awareness and intentionality as they move between research and intuitive modes of making. I share my enthusiasm for the possibilities that are revealed through skilled use of tools, materials and technique. In the studio I often see successful work often taking shape by allowing formal decisions to grow in direct response to difficulties as they present themselves. In this way, I teach my students to see problems as opportunities.
Critique is a creative, collaborative process that takes on a unique shape each time it’s practiced. With an emphasis on participation, we see that understanding different points of view leads to greater empathy, self-awareness and more critically engaged work.
Over the years my students and I have defined and redefined what it means to be artists. We’ve found that freedom, curiosity and imagination are forces that guide us into new ways of understanding and being. We’ve seen that artists are people who remake the world every day. As a teacher, I’m driven by the possibilities that are brought to life through teaching and I’m proud to serve as a champion for my students as I help to guide them on a journey of discovery.
Primarily a painter, Peter Barrickman’s work has also spanned film, performance, sculpture and installation. Through images that refer to a limited circumstantial or emotional timeframe, and using repetition, change, assembly and destruction, his work talks about positions of transition and simultaneity through a logic informed by character acting, games and music.
Barrickman received his BFA from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and his MFA from Bard College. His work has been shown at numerous galleries and museums including Green Gallery, Milwaukee; Hyde Park Center for the Arts, Chicago; The Museum of Contemporary Art in Detroit; And/Or Gallery, Dallas; 47 Canal, New York; La Panaderia, Mexico City; Angstrom Gallery, Los Angeles; Karma International, Zurich; Tanzschuleprojects, Munich; Tate Modern, London; and Crisp Gallery, London.
Barrickman was the recipient of two Mary L. Nohl Fund Fellowships as well as a fellowship at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. He was an artist-in-residence at Centraltrak in Dallas and at the Millay Colony in Austerlitz.
His work has been written about in Art Papers, Art in America online and The New York Times online. He is represented in Milwaukee by The Green Gallery.
Late Vault and Janitor
Old Bluish Footage
Learn more about Peter’s work at http://www.peterbarrickman.com