ONGOING INSTALLATION
Peter Dayton
Dark Garden, 2024
Ink on premium vinyl with
low-luster laminate and collage overlay
After a nearly decade-long career as a punk rock musician, Peter Dayton returned to visual art upon moving to East Hampton in the mid-1980s. Dark Garden is a site-specific installation created for Guild Hall’s stairwell leading from the lobby to the balcony of the Hilarie and Mitchell Morgan Theater. Dayton’s exploration of flowers began when he found discarded issues of House and Garden magazine from the 1950s near his home, and his collages utilize photocopied flowers from seed catalogs, which links his practice to the work of Andy Warhol and other pop artists. He chooses visually arresting images of flowers without leaves and stems—images devoid of sentiment, emotion, or specific references—allowing the flower forms to create their own patterns.
Please join Melanie Crader in conversation with Peter Dayton on November 3, at 2 PM. Purchase tickets HERE.
ABOUT PETER DAYTON
Peter Dayton (b. 1955, New York) attended art schools in Europe in the 1970s and graduated in 1979 from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where he studied visual, video, and performance art. Initially he pursued music as an art project, then became a professional musician, first in the punk rock band Le Peste, then under his own name until 1986. He turned his attention back to visual art in 1988. Dayton’s work often references various art historical movements and concepts such as minimalism, pop art, abstract expressionism, and feminism. He simultaneously explores and critiques commodity culture and art historical movements through varied materials, techniques, and presentations.
Dayton has participated in solo and group exhibitions nationally, internationally, and extensively on the East End of Long Island. He has produced numerous site-specific installations and commissions for Louis Vuitton, Chanel, the Peter Marino Art Foundation, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, to name a few. This is his first project for Guild Hall.
Dayton lives and works in East Hampton, New York.
