Peter Schireson spent decades learning to quiet the mind—first as a poet, then as a Zen priest— before he picked up a brush. What emerged was a painter who knows how to get out of his own way. His abstractions don't depict the world so much as recieve it, shaped by a nameless, wordless energy that decades of practice have taught him to trust. The result is work that feels genuinely still. Not empty. Still. Peter grew up in Los Angeles in the 1950s. His childhood home was filled with art, including work by Southern California painters like John Paul Jones, Leonard Edmondson, and Rico Lebrun, who made a lasting impact on his creative sensibilities. After retiring from a long and varied career, Peter initially devoted himself to poetry, earning a Master’s in poetry from The Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. He has published six volumes of poetry; Before the Sun, his most recent, focuses on his move to Palm Springs, where he lives with his wife, Jill and their dog Dewey. While continuing to write, since moving to Palm Springs, his creative energy has been focused on painting. Peter works with acrylics, charcoal, and pastels. His paintings favor abstraction, and especially the interplay of shape and color. While he is inspired by people, places, and things he encounters in the physical world, he prefers to invite a nameless, wordlessenergy to inform and shape his work. This inclination developed and ripened over decades of experience as a student, and later as a teacher, of Zen Buddhism in theU.S., where he was ordained as a Zen priest and independent teacher in the Suzuki Roshi lineage, and in Japan, where he studied under Keido Fukushima Roshi at Tofukuji Monastery in Kyoto.Represented by Illumine Gallery. Please inquire for commissions and shipping options.