Peter Driver at 571 Oxford Road Gallery, Reading. [photo credit Holly Taylor @_holota]

b. 1962, Littleport, UK

I make things, or make things happen, using printmaking, painting, walking, birding, collaboration and other procedures.  Through this diverse output I attempt to integrate art and life, creating new knowledge through field and studio research. The work includes presenting my experiences of long-distance walks, exposing the ambiguities of text in a woodcut print, and wrestling many variables into abstract paintings: a variety of responses to the wonder and brokenness of living in the world.

My woodcuts might set a short text within a matrix formed of colour-play, geometric sequence, or the natural patterns found within the grain of the woodblocks.  The texts often present a phrase intended to expose a diversity of interpretations and meanings.

The paintings are always abstract and mostly about painting. Colour-interactions, shape, tone, mark and structure combine in a complex set of relationships, over time. Source material can come from a wide range of stimuli: pop music, memory, the natural world, or field research.  Each painting is a struggle between conflicting forces. Paint gets added, pondered, scrapped-off, covered over… it is an iterative, anxious performance. If there are rules, I break them.

As an organiser and collaborator, I also achieve my objectives by making opportunities for others, particularly for young and emerging artists.

Education

TURPS Correspondence Course
2022-2023
TURPS Art School
MA Fine Art
2014-15
Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton
BA (Hons) Fine Art
2011-14
Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton
Foundation in Art and Design
1981-82
Cambridge School of Art

Solo/duo Exhibitions/Projects

Widdershins Walk: round the edge of Reading
2024
Year-long project with Geoff Sawers (book publication 2025)
Georgics: visual poems on farming (with Ingrid Jensen)
2024
Leominster Information Centre
A Walk For Stanley
2018
Solo walking project (3 days), Instagram #aWalkForStanley
Imagined Futures
2017
K6 Gallery, Southampton
For Such a Time as This
2017
OHOS, Reading
A Gaol Ballad and Other Assorted Love Songs (with Amy-Rose Holland)
2016
OHOS, Reading
WordUp! with Robert Fitzmaurice
2016
Multi-site collaboration for Reading's Year of Culture
ecologies of optimism and dissent
2015
Jam Factory, Oxford
Driver Walks the Chalk
2015
Solo walking project (3 days) Hampshire Downs/chalk streams
I'm glad you're alive! (with Lydia Heath)
2014
OHOS, Reading
Peter Driver: Woodcuts
2013
Winchester Discovery Centre
Thirteen Days in Spring
2012
Solo walking project (13 days) from Winchester to Canterbury

GROUP EXHIBITIONS/PROJECTS

SFSA Painting Open 2024
2024
No Format Gallery, London (December 2024)
Layers
2024
The Department Store, Brixton (18-20 October 2024)
Condition Blah, Blah, Blah
2024
Turbine House, Reading
It Rose And It Fell: Terrace Open
2024
Terrace Gallery, London
LICK
2024
Safehouse 1, London
5 Years Time
2023
Alfred Arcade, Southampton
Do Not Swallow
2023
Safehouse 1 & 2, London
Where the Two Worlds Touch
2023
Reading Biscuit Factory
Cellophane Wrapper
2023
Proteus Creation Space, Basingstoke
Condition Critical
2023
Five Seven One, Reading
Paper_Ink_Print Festival (with Peculiarity Press)
2023
Landmark Arts Centre, Teddington
Inbetweeners
2022
Chapel Arts, Andover
Newsprint Open
2022
Three Works, Scarborough
Artists for Ukraine
2022
Five Seven One, Reading
Relational Beings
2021
Chapel Arts Andover
Newsprint Open
2021
Three Works, Scarborough
ArtAgainstCovid
2020
online, in aid of grassroots non-profits in the North West
Saturated Space
2020
Sandham Memorial Chapel, (performance at p.v.)
silence | absence
2019
Broad Street Mall, Reading
Let Us Dissent
2019
SPUDworks, Sway
The Arborealists and Guests
2019
The Art of Trees -Turbine House, Reading
Triangulations
2019
OHOS, Reading
In The Round
2019
Chapel Arts, Andover
Only The Sunny Hours: contemporary photography with a KODAK Brownie 127
2018
OHOS, Reading
Print & Process
2018
Hartley Library, University of Southampton
Block_Chain>The Power of Two
2018
online residency at CAS Andover
Winter Print Salon
2017
ONCA Gallery, Brighton
ChaosContrastsChange
2017
OHOS, Reading
Laboratory of Dissent
2015
Winchester Gallery, Winchester
10Days Winchester: CHALK
2015
Winchester Gallery, Winchester
Andover March for Optimism
2015
Andover Town Centre
Meeting Point
2015
Crypt Gallery, London
Platform Graduate Award
2014
Aspex Gallery Portsmouth
Someone & Something
2014
Aspex Gallery Portsmouth
Tabula Rasa
2014
The Bargehouse, London
Encounters, Andover
2014
Andover High Street
March for Optimism
2014
Winchester City Centre
Insight 2014
2014
New Greenham Arts, Newbury
Transmediale Festival (group installation)
2014
Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin
Raison D'etre
2013
Mottisfont National Trust, Hants
No Working Title
2013
Tate Modern, London
Space for Peace (curated by Kimvi Nguyen)
2013
Winchester Cathedral
Art&Ride - part of 10Days Festival
2013
Winchester
Outlook Changeable
2013
OHOS, Reading
Searching, always
2013
Gallery 49, Bracknell

CURATING/ORGANISING

Boiling Point Artist Collective: practice post art school (organiser)
2023
571 Oxford Road Gallery, Reading
Beyond Otherness (facilitator)
2021
571 Oxford Road Gallery, Reading
Fire & Water
2017
OHOS, Reading
Accretion (with Kirsty Smith and Nicky Bell)
2015
Brightbyte Studio, Southampton
Print as a Verb (with Chris Mercier)
2015
OHOS, Reading
Desire Lines
2015
OHOS, Reading
Recent History (with Elly Langlois)
2014
Brooks Centre, Winchester

PUBLICATIONS

Forthcoming: Widdershins Walk (with Geoff Sawers)
2025
Peculiarity Press
A Walk For Stanley
2019
Signed copies available direct from Peter
thirteen days in spring: walking in relation to the kindness of strangers
2012
Available from blurb.co.uk

RESIDENCIES

In-Situ, Lancashire
2021
micro-residency at Brierfield Mill, Pendle District.
Block_Chain>The Power of Two
2018
Online residency with Chapel Arts Studios, Andover
Basing House archaeological dig
July-August 2013
Hampshire: artist in residence

AWARDS

Arts Council England - project grant for Boiling Point: practice post art school at 571 Gallery, Reading, 2023
Arts Council England - Developing Your Creative Practice grant, 2021
Arts Council England- project grant for Beyond Otherness at 571 Gallery, Reading, 2021 (on behalf of OpenHand OpenSpace)
Arts Council England grant for the arts to develop March for Optimism, Andover (as part of Chapel Arts Studios project 'The Bureau of Exchange') 2015
Selected for Graduate Platform programme (Aspex Gallery/CVAN South East), 2014

TEACHING

Teaching Fellow in Fine Art (part-time)
2016–2022
Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton

COLLECTIONS

Winchester School of Art
Alumni collection
University of Southampton
Artists books collection
University of Southampton
Department of Archaeology
Reading Borough Council