Peter Butler, who has lived in Clinton, NC, for more than three decades, is an accomplished artist with more than a half-century of painting experience. He earned a BFA degree from University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in 1976, and is represented in private and public collections throughout the country, including the Duke Children’s Hospital in Durham. A former competitive swimmer and swim coach, his works often depict swimmers and swimming pools.“I don’t belong to any school or ‘isms.’ I’ve looked at all of them and taken what was useful to me. What I do is some version of figuration. Hard-edged forms presented in a soft light. The subjects are largely devoid of meaning. There isn’t much going on. I invest the forms with a convincing sense of mass and that creates space. Solid forms are defined by a supple line. The subjects are symbolic and symbols mean different things to different people. I leave that to the viewer. For me this is the way the world looks and it doesn’t look some other way. The images are bold, the forms are clearly defined. Soft subjects presented in an aggressive style.”