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Peter J. Christ
2020 Fellowship Award Recipient

Painter and Videographer

Website: peterjacobchrist.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PeterJacobChrist
Shout Out Video Production website: peterjchrist.wixsite.com/shout-out
Instagram: peterchrist
Email: peterjchrist@gmail.com

 
Education:
  • BFA Syracuse University; Areas of Study: Painting, Illustration, and Graphic Design
  • MS New York University; Areas of Study: Video Production and Painting
  • Teachers I was most influenced by: Jerome Witkin and Idelle Weber
 
Business:
  • Studio Manager at University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (1974 – 1983)
  • Creative Director at several Ad Agencies; (Units of WPP and Publicis) (1983 – 2005)
  • President and Owner: Shout Out Communications (2005 to present)
 
Painting:
  • Paintings in Juried Shows in NYC and at Art Center Sarasota/Art Center Manatee
 
Gallery representation:
  • Currently represented by Art Uptown Gallery in Sarasota Florida
 
Bio

Drawing and painting has been a part of my life from early childhood in Buffalo, NY. I entered Syracuse University as a liberal arts major. But within a year I talked my way into taking classes in both the art school and school of architecture. Fortunate to have gone to college in an age when experimentation was encouraged (You did not have to know you were going to be a brain surgeon as a 7-year-old!). I soon found my love for the visual arts overwhelming and before I knew it my portfolio was accepted at Syracuse University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts. While an S.U. student I was able to study painting for a semester overseas at the Sir John Cass School of Art in London, finishing the semester’s studies in Paris. More wonderful broadening experiences.  I had many wonderful teachers in all the visual and graphic arts classes but especially with the painter Jerome Witkin. I’ve been fortunate throughout my career to be able to paint (for love) and design as a creative director in advertising (for money). Each discipline fed the other. While working by day I went to NYU for my masters degree at night to learn film/video production and at the same time continue my development as a painter. Again, I was fortunate to have a painting teacher who was challenging and encouraging — Idelle Weber. After many years on staff in the advertising world I broke loose and started my own video production company — Shout Out Communications — which continues to this day.  Throughout these years (from Syracuse days to present) I’ve been most fortunate to be supported and inspired by my wife Marcia Christ (an artist and documentary producer — most recently “Sixty and Strong: The Petticoat Painters”).  Additional cast of characters in my home movies include my daughter Rose and her wife Heather, my son (the doctor) Jacob, and the boss of the household — our dog Abbie.

About my painting:
  • The directness of paint applied with no equivocation. 
  • Clear mark making. 
  • Edges that reflect. 
  • Edges that define.
  • Edges that demand attention.
  • Painting that is drawing.
  • Drawing that is painting.
  • Color that controls the painting.
  • Color that directs the composition.
  • Representational, figurative, emotional, graphic.
  • Not hyper realistic.
  • Paint that is lush, creamy.
  • And sensual.

Film Festival Documentaries:

Sixty and Strong: The Petticoats — Feature Length documentary I shot and editied on the one of the oldest continuously operating group of professional women painters in America. Sarasota Film Festival Selection 2015

All There Is – A Circus Story — Trailer for Feature length documentary I shot on the closing of the Ringling Circus and it’s impact on the human and animal performers.

Sarasota Film Festival Selection; Los Angeles Olympus Film Festival Selection and winner of “Best Family Film” 2019.