Adair Peck

"Menemsha Hills" colorful mixed media painting of fishing boats

2023

A painter of people, landscapes, animals, and abstracts, who is inspired by the culture and surroundings of the all the places she has lived. Raised in the suburbs of Chicago, and encouraged by her mother, renowned artist Fay Peck, she studied art at Boston University, and earned her MFA from Brooklyn College. In the late 1980’s and early 90’s Peck lived in the East Village of Manhattan and her portraits embraced the aspiring artists of the downtown scene, along with the homeless residents of Alphabet City. Peck captured the era’s spirit of freedom and decay in her many prints, paintings and collages. In 1991, Peck was commissioned to recreate these scenes as a backdrop for the production of ‘“Fallen Angel,” for the legendary La Mama Theatre. Whether she’s depicting gritty street scenes or breathtaking mountain vistas, Peck’s art reflects her personal observations and reactions to the world around her. Like the German Expressionists and Mexican Folk Artists who continue to influence her work, Peck attempts to capture her own visceral experience of the world. She has worked as a multi-media printmaker, sculptor and painter. Among the variety of styles and subjects Peck has depicted are papier-mâché animals inspired by Montana’s beautiful wilderness and large scale figure paintings incorporating the Chine-Colle printmaking technique. In Peck’s most recent work, encaustic painting allows her to continue her explorations with subject and materials as she mixes pigment, coffee grounds and paper into beeswax. She then paints, melts and scrapes layers of color and texture to reveal her latest subjects and her own personal story. Over the years, Peck has lived and worked in the suburbs, the city, the beach and the mountains. You can see the inspiring places and expressive characters she has met throughout her work. She now lives in Bozeman, Montana where she and her husband are raising their three daughters.