Peter Cochrane
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.
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The Wild Beasts: Peter Cochrane
June 06 - July 03, 2019