Peter Spanjer

Through his ‘Eros’ series, artist Peter Spanjer addresses ideas of conflict and resolution in his contemporary print artworks. For him, the process of collecting became an integral part of the artworks. The alluring contemporary print series consists of a number of ‘digital paintings’. In this case, each artwork is a distorted version of a film still, specifically extracted from gay black adult movies. Once he has his chosen still, Spanjer transforms the erotic imagery into abstraction. Subsequently, the sexualised naked forms turn into censored and unrecognisable forms. Spanjer transforms the explicit narrative into a captivatingly abstract one.

This particular project simultaneously challenges how we identify sex within queer culture, and importantly how gay black men are seen. In his final prints, Spanjer refrains from keeping them as overtly sexualised visual narratives. Accordingly, he reconstructs the eroticism into complex strokes of vibrant colour.

For Spanjer, these ideas of conflict are conjured during the process of making the prints. Mostly, this stems from unanswered and unresolved questions he holds himself. In a similar vein, he addresses ‘intention’ in his work. He makes decisions of whether the work will become a moving or still image. In his ‘Eros’ series, most often, he creates his colourful prints from a hugely personal place, as he attempts to re-focus on personal resolutions. Ultimately, he uses the two ideals of conflict and resolution to make his work from. Equally important, Spanjer’s intentions for his prints were far more explicit than they eventually became.