The work of Montreal artist Peter Krausz has included paintings, drawings, installations and photography. Like David Bierk, he has explored the use of painted frames, metal surfaces and lettered text. He is best known for epic landscapes of terraced fields and low rolling hills, punctuated and delineated by groves and orchards – gorgeous vistas that look far into the distance. With their saturated natural hues, Krausz’s fictional panoramas are reminiscent of southern Europe.

The Mediterranean has been prominent in the artist’s work for more than twenty years. It acts as a geographic and political site for exploring the relationship of man to nature, to underscore the lack of political borders in nature, and to portray historically charged locations, often where mass violence has been perpetrated. Like David Bierk, Krausz uses “the riches of human memory” to deliver imaginary landscapes that appear mysterious yet familiar.

Peter Krausz was born in Romania in 1946 and studied mural painting between 1964-1969 at the Fine Arts Institute in Bucharest. He made Montreal his home in 1970. From 1980-1991, Krausz was curator of the Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts in Montreal, and in 1991 began teaching Fine Arts at the Université de Montréal. He has exhibited extensively in Montreal, Toronto, New York, Los Angeles and Paris.

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Mia Johnson