It is difficult to separate the life and the work of Peter Tunney because in many ways they are one and the same. His work is a part of a bigger story spanning three decades, one that has taken him across the globe from the African savanna to Wall Street boardrooms. He has amassed a wealth of experiences: funny, harrowing, and infused with joy and tragedy. He has emerged as an artist with a message, boldly affirming Grattitude, Don’t Panic, The Time Is Always Now, Everything Is Going to Be Amazing, Today is the Day, I’m Busy for the Rest of My Life. His billboard project, primarily in New York City, is tangible proof.
Words are the basis of Peter Tunney’s artistic practice. Tunney is a dedicated explorer of our cultural lexicon, culling disparate media for images and words in collage. He reveals these messages in the context of ephemera from American popular culture, which is as likely to date from the 1940s and earlier as it is from a headline on the sports page of last week’s New York Post.
Though he works in a broad range of media of the visual art language, paint, wood, photography, printed material, and found object, Peter Tunney is fundamentally a performance artist. His experiences are the wellspring of his work, rendering Grattitude, not as a reductive slogan, rather as a vital and urgent concept he insists is often missing from cultural conversation. Peter often says that he is, happily, “busy for the rest of [his] life,” living and making art between his two studios in New York and Miami. His work has been included in auctions and exhibitions as well as private collections worldwide.
Samuel Owen Gallery specializes in contemporary art, both original works and multiples and maintains an extensive inventory of work by Damien Hirst, Shepard Fairey, Mr. Brainwash, CANTSTOPGOODBOY, Dale May, Eric Zener, and of course, Peter Tunney.