Peter Churcher (b. 1964, Brisbane) is a leading Australian figurative painter who currently lives and works in Barcelona, Spain. The artist states, “Since graduating from art school, I have been primarily concerned with the painting of the human figure in a narrative context and the depiction of the human presence – that is the Portrait. This focus all stems from my devotion to the great figurative masters such as Velasquez and Rembrandt and my firm belief and personal quest to depict our own surrounding world of visual, sensory and emotional stimuli through paint on canvas.”
Churcher grew up in a Brisbane household filled with the smell of wet paint, turpentine and strewn with hundreds of brushes. The strong presence of his parents, artist and art lecturer-turned administrator Roy and Betty Churcher, was a palpable influence on his young life and artistic interest. His mother went on to direct the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra for a seven-year period.
After finishing school and in efforts to establish an identity separate from his parents, Peter initially pursued music studies, completing a Bachelor of Music (Hons) at Melbourne University’s Conservatorium of Music. Graduating after five years in 1986, Churcher set off on a nine-month overseas trip which led him to realise that, while he loved music, he was no concert pianist or musicologist in the making. At age 23 and wandering around the Musee D’Orsay in Paris, his artistic roots came calling.
On arriving back to Australia Churcher promptly enrolled in a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Painting) at Victoria College, graduating in 1991. He held his first solo exhibition in 1994, and has since held regular solo exhibitions in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane and has been represented in many group exhibitions across the country.
Churcher is a regular finalist in the Archibald Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney. In 2002 Churcher was appointed an Official War Artist by the Australian War Memorial and documented the involvement of the Royal Australian Navy and Royal Australian Air Force in the Persian Gulf and militarised atoll of Diego Garcia.
Churcher’s work is represented in many major public, corporate and private collections throughout Australia and overseas including the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; National Portrait Gallery, Canberra; The Australian War Memorial, Canberra; Parliament House, Victoria; the Collection of Kerry Stokes, Western Australia; and the Collection of William S. Lieberman, USA.
Image: Felix behind the screen, 2020l oil on canvas, 81cm x 65cm
