Peter Hoffer

Peter Hoffer was born in 1965 in Brantford, Ontario. He holds an MFA from Concordia University and degrees from the University of Guelph and OCAD University. He has lived and worked in Toronto, New York City, Paris, Montreal and Berlin.

He is known for his textural landscape paintings that employ a variety of new mediums and techniques. Trained in both sculpture and painting, Hoffer’s attention to materiality is always evident in his work. He paints directly on wood panel and often leaves part of the surface visible. Hoffer finishes each painting with a clear resin, a material that he began using while studying at Concordia University in Montreal in the mid-1990s.

In a single painting, Hoffer mixes a variety of styles including realism and abstraction. In contrast to his carefully rendered trees, Hoffer’s skies and backgrounds are spontaneous and painterly. To create the effect of light in his most recent paintings, Hoffer applies a single layer of translucent white paint, allowing it to make random patterns on the surface beneath. The resulting cloud-like shapes capture a certain quality of light found in Eastern and Northern Canada.

Peter Hoffer received his BFA from the University of Guelph in painting and sculpture and his MFA from Concordia University in Montreal in sculpture. His works are in many important collections across Canada including Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal and Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec