Peter Peryer: Holy Tomato, 3 December 2022 – 12 February 2023

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Peter Peryer: Holy Tomato, 3 December 2022 – 12 February 2023

Peter Peryer, Holy Tomato, 2006, digital inkjet pigment print on paper, 2021/9/8. Collection of the Sarjeant Gallery Te Whare o Rehua Whanganui. Gift of the Peter Peryer estate, 2021

This exhibition, titled after one of Peter Peryer’s photographs Holy Tomato (2006) is just one of over 150 works the Sarjeant Gallery has in its collection. This exhibition features works created between 2003 and 2018, which were acquired by the Gallery in 2021 with generous assistance from his estate. With the addition of these works the Sarjeant has one of the most comprehensive collections of Peryer’s photographic practice in a public gallery.

PETER PERYER: HOLY TOMATO

A bright red tomato positioned carefully on a carved wooden foot – curious subject matter for a photograph and perhaps made even more enigmatic by its title Holy Tomato. The 2006 photograph was taken by Peter Peryer (b.1941, d.2018) and is just one of the 180 works that the Sarjeant Gallery has in its care. Like other significant New Zealand photographers such as Laurence Aberhart, Anne Noble and Wayne Barrar the Sarjeant’s ongoing friendship with Peryer was initiated and fostered by the Gallery’s former Director – Bill Milbank.

This exhibition features works created between 2003 and 2018, which were acquired by the Gallery in 2021 with generous assistance from his estate. With the addition of these works the Sarjeant has one of the most comprehensive collections of Peryer’s photographic practice in a public gallery.

Peryer came to photography at the age of 32, late in comparison with other photographers. His output was constant but not prolific. He would often return, or revisit, subjects as a way of processing and percolating over long periods of time.

Families of photographs were something that Peryer often discussed in his practice and this exhibition is testament to that – the images nod and stretch toward each other. Although there are no portraits in the exhibition, his considered eye manages to give each of his images a distinctive personality.

In a 1995 catalogue essay to accompany the major survey of Peryer’s work – Second Nature, Peter Weiermair commented: “Peryer’s intention is to create a few compelling archetypal images that go beyond the careless verbosity of contemporary photography – to create photographs as complex as good poems, which can be read again and always differently.”

Greg Donson
Curator and Public Programmes Manager