Peter Esdaile was born in Montreal, Canada in 1947 and grew up in Oslo, Norway. He recieved his professional education at The Arts and Crafts School in Oslo (1966-68) in printmaking and painting, and Norwegian State Art Academy of Oslo (1968-73) in printmaking, painting and sculpture.
"Over the years, I have shown my works in separate and group exhibits throughout Scandinavia, Germany and the U.S., as well as, participating in graphic and sculptural symposiums in Sweden and Portugal. (See resume)
In addition, I have taught at the Academies of Oslo, Bergen and Trondheim, and numerous private art schools.
In my art, I have been fascinated by the themes of the individual, gender relations, and the existential dilemmas of loneliness, alienation, confusion and conflict. Initially, my works, both in painting and prints were primarily figurative, characterized by political and social satire, sometimes erotic scenes imbued with both endearment and irony.
Later, I have explored more abstract modes of expression in drawing and printmaking and purposely turned away from representational imagery. An interest in architectural and geometrical space caught my imagination for some years, in a series of prints and pastel drawings that could be labeled “The Architecture of the Mind.” This style led me, in turn to a more stylized, abstract expression in my sculptural works as well.
Today these divergent phases have intuitively merged into a semi-figurative style, where a representational language reintroduces a new narrative, emerging from basic abstract structures, executed in an expressionist manner. Technically, I try to display the first layers of paint and create a dynamic sphere of vibrant colors, applied with energetic brushstrokes resulting in a multiplicity of textures and glazes. My imaginative search becomes a Rorschach Test, where one visual element often gives a clue leading to another, like steppingstones on a journey."