Peter Roth
Artist Statement
I want to create paintings that combine photo-realism with simulated motion. Reverse perspective is my current passion because it is the technique which seems best suited to accomplish this. I am also interested in creating the illusion of artificial lighting. The fact that one can lay down paint and make it seem that “the lights have been turned on” is fascinating.
I believe that each painting should be considered as a unique statement and be evaluated for its visual effect alone. No thought should be given to its method of execution. I want the viewer to have a “Wow!” experience, not just a “What a beautiful scene” experience.
Biography
Peter Roth is a Chicago artist, born in 1939. He and his wife, Betty J. Toy, a retired architect, reside in the Beverly Hills (Chicago) neighborhood in a 1926 “two flat” which they have completely rehabbed. He was educated in the public school system and at Illinois Institute of Technology where he earned a degree in chemical engineering in 1961.
After college, he entered the family chemical specialty business, Midland Chicago Corp. During his time in management, he also was involved in the graphic design of product labels and advertising literature. The firm was sold in 1998 and Roth retired and began to devote significant time to painting. His art education consists of a few early semesters at the Art Institute of Chicago and, after retirement, classes at the Beverly Art Center in Chicago and the Lighthouse Center for the Arts in Tequesta, Florida, where he studies with the well-known photo-realistic marine painter Randall Scott.
Besides Scott, he greatly admires the work of Davis Cone, the photo-realistic movie theater painter and especially the English artist Patrick Hughes who developed the reverse perspective technique in which Roth is currently working. A lifelong interest in cabinet making and furniture design facilitates Roth’s creation of the structures that serve as “canvases” for this genre.
Roth is a golfer and tennis player, and a fan of traditional jazz, particularly the music of Bix Beiderbecke and Django Reinhardt.