RELIEF MAPS
An Exhibition by Peter Chao

Exhibition Dates: June 24 – July 5
Location: Provincetown Commons
46 Bradford Street
Provincetown, MA 02657

Opening Reception
Friday, June 26
5 PM – 7 PM

Artist Website
Instagram

Gallery Hours
Monday – Friday: 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Saturday & Sunday: 10:00 AM – 2:00 PM

Artist Statement:

These are landscapes built from memory and inheritance, a terrain that belongs to a new world. They are made with two techniques: the punch needle creates ground, texture and height, while the couching lays down and stitches lines, sometimes layering colors into shifting contours that never settle on a single thing. One technique builds the body; the other draws lines through it. Together they form terrain — ridgelines, troughs, and the high white of something cresting against the dark. My father crossed from China to Taiwan at eighteen, during the Great Exodus in 1949. I learned the details of his passage after he passed away, and I began these works in that same period. What I understand now is that I was building us a new land: everyone who had to leave a place that wouldn't keep them and went searching for ground that would. You raise it stitch by stitch, making somewhere to stand.

Artist Bio:

Peter Chao is an artist and art director working from Provincetown, Massachusetts, and New York, New York. He studied fine art and graphic design at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. Peter works and experiments in textiles, silk screen, photography, and paper weaving.