1

Peter Sloan, the second of four children, was born in Toronto in 1955. He was raised in Toronto until 1962, in Calgary from 1962 to 1964, and in Toronto from 1965 onwards.

After taking night courses at the Ontario College of Art (OCA, now the Ontario College of Art and Design), he enrolled full time and graduated with honours in 1979 with a fifth year assistantship in the foundry. From 1974 to 1978 he worked part time at the Bau-xi Gallery in Toronto as well as in the mold making room at OCA as a studio monitor. Various part time jobs at this time included helping fabricate Michael Snow's geese sculpture "Flight Stop", a permanent installation in Toronto's Eaton Centre.

For a year after OCA, Peter worked for Moov Art Ltd. painting murals and super graphics (huge graphic designs painted on factory walls) in and around Toronto. From 1981 to 1984 Peter worked as production coordinator for Artmark Sculptures, which produced and sold small figurative bronze sculptures. During this time, he took part time jewelry courses at George Brown College in Toronto and ultimately taught jewelry casting, which he continues to do at Canadore College in North Bay.

From 1980 to 1992, he worked as a freelance commercial sculptor. His large-scale collaborative projects include 28 life-size, computer animated human and animal figures for the Wilderness Adventure Ride at Ontario Place (Toronto, 1985); an 8-by-26 foot cement Midwest-Arizona-style rock sculptures in Monterra Pavilion (Blue Mountain Country Club, Collingwood, Ontario, 1990); and a 16-by-4 foot scale model of Lock No. 3 of the Welland Canal (Welland Canal Museum, St. Catharines, Ontario)

In 1992 he moved to a rural area just outside of North Bay, Ontario and married Joanne Holtby with whom he has two children.

Solo exhibitions include Layers (W. K. P. Kennedy Gallery, North Bay, Ontario and Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery, Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, 2005), Clay (White Water Gallery, North Bay, Ontario, 2000), and White Plaster (Gallery 76, Toronto, Ontario, 1980).

Peter's work is in the collection of R.M.E. Capital (North Bay, Ontario).

He is represented by Prime Gallery and Metalurge in Toronto, Ontario and Influx Gallery in Calgary, Alberta.

His web site can be viewed at www.petersloan.ca

(The biographical information featured here was written in consultation with the artist in 2006.)

Interview:

Peter Sloan was exposed to art from an early age, as his grandfather owned the Canadian Art Gallery, the first gallery west of Ontario, where the Group of Seven were shown. He loved going there and looking at the art supplies sold out of the back of the store. His grandfather advised him against becoming an artist because of financial concerns, but "that only cemented my resolve to become an artist," says Peter.

He developed an interest in his own art practice in high school, when he was exposed to acrylic painting and carving with soapstone and yellow cedar. It was in high school that he first felt like an artist. In Grade 10, he "found the magic of getting lost in the creative void" where, he says, time disappeared.

After high school, he worked in a number of jobs, and took night classes in life drawing and graphics at the Ontario College of Art (now the Ontario College of Art and Design) which were his "glowing beacons of wonderfulness." He later enrolled in the college full-time and loved being surrounded by creative people. Even today, Peter-a teacher-continues to "take courses all the time". In fact, he took a class by Keith Campbell at Canadore College over and over again, he enjoyed it so much.

Peter's works consist of both large-scale sculpture and jewelry. His most challenging work was creating an 8-by-26 foot cement Midwest-Arizona-style rock wall in Monterra Pavilion in Collingwood, Ontario. Making the armature involved cutting at different angles and hammering wire mesh on top, then adding cement and creating texture with brushes and old brooms.

Jewelry is a much more intricate process, but he says the initial stages are similar. With large scale sculpture, Peter says that it must be planned out and prepared. "You are committed because it's so big and there's less room for flexibility." With jewelry, he can be more flexible. He finds that his works appear differently than his initial vision, and that that is part of the thrill of art making.

When asked about his creative process, Peter says that he starts with an idea (of which he has millions and regrettably, not enough time to fulfill all of them), and begins modeling. He follows the idea loosely but mostly he "let[s] it go", and doesn't restrict himself with rules. If a tangent arises, he follows it.

He sees his next decade as a race against time. "Now is a pivotal time", he says. As he ages, he wants to make more and more of his ideas materialize.

(By Heather Saunders, based on an interview in December, 2006).

2

Peter Sloan
2006

3

Peter Sloan, Cabal (detail)
2005
W. K. P. Kennedy Gallery, North Bay, Ontario, Canada


Credits:
courtesy of Peter Sloan

4

Peter Sloan, Artist statement
2000