Bio

Peter Dillman has been a practicing artist since 1991. He studied visual arts at the University of Waterloo and graduated from the National Theatre School of Canada from the Scenography program.

He received a Graduate Certificate Cultural Administration in 2016 from Centennial College and is currently practicing full time as a visual artist.

His artistic explorations involve disability, memory, neuro-divergence, and of form and colour in representational, landscape and abstract expressions.

Peter works with a variety of media, ranging from oil and acrylic paints, photography, found object sculpture, paper and textiles.

Currently, his work revolves around 2D painting, photography, sculpture, installation, and the fallibility and fragility of memory.

Peter is a father of two, and has worked as an artist, arts instructor and artist in residence, exhibit coordinator, curator, art installer and as a designer in four different provinces over the past three decades.

Artist statement

Well, I’m back.

Four years after being hit by an impaired driver (with a pandemic thrown in for good measure) I’m back in the studio. I feared my creative drive was gone forever.

I've learned a lot about myself while healing from a destroyed leg, an eye knocked out of focus and a brain injury. These injuries, which have changed how I move, how I see and how I process the world, have changed how I make art.

I’m learning now to paint to portray the world as I now see it.  

In working with a neuro-optometrist, I learned visual perception impacts our parasympathetic system and our fight, flight, freeze response instinct.  When vision is impaired, the parasympathetic nervous system can get stuck in an overactive response loop as the primitive parts of the brain interpret innocuous stimuli as threats.

With my now fuzzy peripheral vision I am in a constant, unconscious state of high alert. These fuzzy images get burned in my mind. I attempt to portray these impressions on canvas.