Peter Booth

A major retrospective exhibition of Peter Booth's work was held at the Ian Potter Centre: National Gallery of Victoria during November 2003 to February 2004.

An example is Painting 1978 which has been described as challenging and disturbing the viewer by the artist's choice of colour and method of painting. "The dramatic black and red, yellow and white composition suggests both an industrial and a natural wasteland". The heavy impasto paint texture describes, with vigour and intensity, flames, explosions, and unidentified nightmarish images. Contradictory forces pull us into the central inferno below the glacial mountain peaks, and showers of rock explode towards us.

Booth was born the son of a doctor of metallurgy, and industrial surrounds of Sheffield influenced him from an early age. He and his family migrated to Australia in 1958, where he worked as a labourer for several years before attending the National Gallery School in Melbourne. In the 1980s Booth started his phase of horrifying figures, for example mutilated bodies and war scenes (sometimes with a light touch of humour), yet he always conveys a strong feeling in his art. It is even possible to almost feel what the main "character" is feeling. This also reflects his dreams as some of his works are based upon dreams, which could also categorise him as a surrealist painter.

Peter Booth (born 2 November 1940) is an Australian figurative and a surrealist painter, and one of the key late-20th-century Australian artists. His work is characterised by an intense emotional power of often dark narratives, and esoteric symbolism.