PETER RASMUSSEN
The Rules of the Game
7 April - 6 May 2006

Peter Rasmussen’s first solo exhibition with the Eagle Gallery ‘The Rules of the Game’ comprises of
three series of oil paintings on paper and related works on canvas. The first is based on stills from the 1939 black and white film of the same name by Jean Renoir, the second derived from a 1930’s
photograph of the head of a young woman repeatedly recreated and the third is abstract, the
images made through a process of layering successive horizontal, vertical and diagonal bands of colour.

Various elements of time connect the work and the inter relationship between very different kinds
of imagery is reinforced by the way the sequences are hung together as a large scale installation.
Rasmussen’s process combines painting and mono-printing in a dialogue of surfaces and the combination of direct and mediated brushstrokes, by definition and in appearance, suggests different lapses of time in application and, in the visible overlapping of surfaces, evidences and records the operation of time.

Renoir’s film explores the degeneration of a society on the eve of war. The structure of this society, based on inequality and hypocrisy (represented in the film by figures from all levels of the social strata) is shaken by the invasion of alien elements of a purer nature: an aviator and a poacher.
These characters play out their roles and suffer to varying degrees according to the extent to which
they disregard society’s rules and attempt to change their position.
In a parallel sense the grouping of these images, the movement of paint across different surfaces,
the figures, their surroundings, brush mark and painterly space, jostle together in a constant
negotiation.

Peter Rasmussen trained at Chelsea School of Art and has shown extensively in Europe and the
USA. His work is held in public collections including Senat Berlin and Gesellschaft für Erkunde zu Berlin and he has been the recipient of a number of residential awards in Spain, Ireland and the USA.