Peter Cochrane

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Peter Cochrane is an artist and an author exploring queer politics, autobiographical and ancestral trauma and recovery, and the fabrication of histories through self-portraiture, abstraction, floral arrangements, and installation. If heritage is given to each person and manufactured for each thing, the intersection of the two is where he creates new stories through radical empathy and soft interconnectivity. The intersection of cosmic time and the human scale helps him to navigate the direction of his voice.

His work has appeared in BOMB, Headmaster, The San Francisco Chronicle , make/shift: feminisms in motion , SFAQ/NYAQ/AQ , Artslant , the de Young Museum, the Vermont Center for Photography, the Tokyo International Photo Awards, and others. He has created books that have traveled to the Vancouver Art/Book Fair, the Los Angeles Art Book Fair, the San Francisco Art Book Fair, and the Room&Book Fair at the ICA in London. His work is included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago. He has held solo exhibitions in San Francisco, California and Richmond, Virginia. He is currently a lecturer in the Photography and Film department at Virginia Commonwealth University.

 

 

Education

2019

MFA, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA

 

2011

BA Art / Art History, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA

 

Select Solo Exhibitions

2019

The Wild Beasts, Page Bond Gallery, Richmond VA

The Wild Beasts , The Anderson Gallery, Richmond, VA

 

2018

Memento Vivere , Richmond, VA

 

2017

A Continuum , The Great Highway Gallery, San Francisco, CA

 

2015

Osiris , Incline Gallery, San Francisco, CA

 

Select Group Exhibitions

2019

Medusa , permanent installation, Andytown (downtown), San Francisco, CA

The Shape of Things , University of the Arts, Helsinki, Finland

The Shape of Things , The Anderson Gallery, Richmond, VA

Minotaur , [Sentanyl], Walnut Creek, CA

Beware of Dog , FAB Gallery, Richmond, VA

 

2018

Tokyo International Foto Awards (TIFA), Tokyo, Japan

From Blood to Lust , Vermont Center for Photography, Brattleboro, VT

I Would Prefer Not To, FAB GAllery, Richmond, VA

 

2017

SAD, FAB Gallery, Richmond, VA

 

2015

The Exposure Award, Louvre Museum, Paris, France

 

2013

The Unknown, 1314, San Francisco, CA

 

2012

The Male Gaze , Cesar Chavez Gallery, San Francisco, CA

About the Twenty-Somethings , “Matter!” de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA

Headmaster magazine, issue three, contributing artist

About the Twenty-Somethings , “Scholarship Award Show,” SFSU, CA

 

2011

Neo-Mormonism , de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA

Objectification , “Stillwell Exhibition,” SFSU Fine Arts Gallery, San Francisco, CA

“Please Show I.D.,” Martin Wong Gallery, San Francisco, CA

 

2010

“Stillwell Exhibition,” SFSU Fine Arts Gallery, San Francisco, CA

 

Select Publications

2019

SPELGBTQ Instagram takeover, January

 

2018

Hyperallergic, “Emerging Artists Define Their Path” / Memento Vivere , October

Artslant, “Under the Radar: Peter Cochrane,” September

 

2017

SFist, “20 Questions with SFist: Artist Peter Cochrane,” Eve Batey, January

 

2016

See Me, “Peter Cochrane,” November 16

Artslant, “Steve Kahn’s Photo-constructions,” Steve Kahn, Casemore Kirkeby

Artslant, “Looking at, and Through, Photography,” Ivan Iannoli at Bass & Reiner

 

2015

Art Business, “Osiris at Incline Gallery,” October

The Exposure Award, July

San Francisco Chronicle, published photograph, March

SFAQ, “Carrie Mae Weems: Subject & Witness,” Gallery Paula Anglim, April

“LUMEN,” Cinque Mostre: Time & Again, published by The American Academy in Rome

 

2014

SFAQ, “Interview: Takeshi Murata and Digital Art,” May

SFAQ, “Regarding the Ethics of Abstraction,” March.

Darin Klein’s Box of Books, Vol. VII, “on death and,” January

 

2013

“Nature/Knowledge: Catherine Wagner,” San Jose Public Library, May

Bomb Magazine, “The End of San Francisco?” April

Holloway Magazine (Founder and Director)

 

2012

make/shift, feminisms in motion magazine, contributing artist

Headmaster magazine, issue three, contributing artist

 

2011

Roll Call, SF Camerawork EXPERIENCE /

 

Residencies

2017

TEDxSoMa, artist-in-residence installation, SFMOMA, San Francisco, CA June

 

Awards and Scholarships

2019

The Snider Prize, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Honorable Mention

Honors Society Inductee

Phi Kappa Phi Honors Society Inductee

 

2018-2019

Full Scholarship – Graduate Teaching Assistantship | VCUArts

 

2018

Tokyo International Foto Awards (TIFA), Winner

 

2017-2018

Full Scholarship – Graduate Teaching Assistantship | VCUArts

 

2016

ArtSlant Showcase Winner

 

2015

The Exposure Award – Portraiture

 

2011

The Sher-Right Fund Scholarship, San Francisco State University

Best Multi-Media Artist, “Stillwell Exhibition,” SFSU Fine Arts Gallery

Best Photographer, “Stillwell Exhibition,” SFSU Fine Arts Gallery

 

Residencies

2017

TEDxSoMa, artis-in-residence installation, SFMOMA, San Francisco CA June

 

Professional Experience

2019

VCUArts | Professor, Queer Imagery (self-constructed course)

 

2018

VCUArts | Professor, Studio Lighting

Co-founder | Queer Arts Organization, VCUArts

VCUArts | Guest Lecturer, Senior Thesis II

Institute of Contemporary Arts, Richmond, VA | Panelist, Discussion with Cassils

Institute of Contemporary Arts, Richmond, VA | Engagement Committee Member

VCUArts | President, Graduate Artist Association

Catherine Wagner Studio | Writer / Editor for monograph Place, History, and the Archive

 

2017-18

Catherine Wagner Studio | Writer / Editor

VCUArts| Graduate Teacher’s Assistant

 

2015-2017

Commercial Photographer / Freelance Floral Designer / Editor / Writer / Artist

 

2014-2016

SFAQ / NYAQ / AQ | Managing Editor, Print and Online

 

2012-2014

Catherine Wagner Studio | Studio Manager, Artistic Assistant, Author

Holloway Magazine | Founder, Editor, Communications Manager, Designer

 

2011

Mills College Department of Art | Guest Lecturer

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art | Exhibitions Archivist

 

2010

SF Camerawork | Archivist

 

The Wild Beasts springs from my desire to thank my ever-expanding queer chosen family and mentors for their strength. Working through the often violent and othering aspects of the lens and photographic histories I create floral portraits responding to each person’s being and our relationship. Using the 19th century, 8×10 large format view camera—the same used by colonialists and ethnographers to “capture” the divinity of Nature—I erect each as a traditional still life studio setup at the threshold between the natural world and that constructed by humans. These environments speak both to the character of each friend and also to the use of Nature against queer people in most legal systems across the planet. We are deemed unnatural and made criminals through inequitable semantics. The 8×10 negative becomes a portrait, a darkroom contact print that is gifted to each of The Wild Beasts, an intimate artifact of my gratitude. At these borders I lash at the histories of oppression, remaking these lineages and tools into spaces for empathy, tenderness, and love.