Peter Treiber

Peter Treiber is an alternative abstract photographer who has exhibited in the Northeastern United States. Notable solo exhibitions include Rehoboth Art League in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, Pennswood Art Gallery in Newtown, Pennsylvania, Atlantic Gallery in New York, Lehigh Valley Arts and Steel Stacks Gallery in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and Monmouth Beach, New Jersey Cultural Center.

Although the artworks may appear to be digital art, they are in fact photographs utilizing a practice known as ICM, or intentional camera movement. In essence, the photography entails long exposures and sometimes incorporates double exposures, superimposing multiple instances at once. The subject matter ranges from carnivals, flame-based performers, and city lights, while other photographs appear as pure abstractions or so distorted to the point of reflecting non-realistic imagery, such as a ‘field’ of light particles. These otherworldly and hallucinogenic photographs are essentially about expressing the beauty and manipulation of light as well as the art of motion. These metaphorical ‘moving-images’ are not videos or films, but rather still-captured motion shots reflecting illumination with vivid distortion. 

Some of the photographs will have the appearance of lightning or fireworks, due the lucid distortion of light and color. Peter Treiber uses light manipulation as the basis for his photography and abstract aesthetics. As a result, such illumination becomes contrasted against the ‘void’ of the pitch darkness and reflect a psychologically harrowing or manipulating effect. The various emotional impulses one may gain from these illuminated illusions would be feelings of jubilee, mania, fantasy, energy, and even science fiction. Many of the photographs have science-fiction-based connotations due to appearing similar to the USS Enterprise traveling at warp speed from Star Trek. Ranging from otherworldly, fantastical, ethereal, hallucinogenic, and manic expressions, the photographs of Peter Treiber instill complexities to contemporary abstraction based on light and movement-manipulation. In essence, he is similar to an illusionist, bending the minds of others to feel profound impact based on obscure impressions. 

Ethereal Luminescence V. 8 (pictured above) unlike most of Peter’s works, exhibits lights in mostly holistic forms as opposed to streaks of linearity. The unusual piece creates circular aesthetics based on flame-performance. This photograph appears as if we have transported to a futuristic carnival where lucid digitized experiences have been integrated with the performers. 

Ranging from integrating performance, cityscapes, event-capturing, and fields of abstracted illusions into his photography, Peter Treiber utilizes alternative practices to express a notion of abstraction beyond notions of pigment and surface. His grand illusions of manipulated light are adventurous, engaging, stimulating, and reveal a dichotomy between the grandeur of captured reality and manipulation of environments based on the distortion of light. Because these abstract photographs are based on real instances, they reflect a reference towards expression and imaginative composure. In essence, the works are not art for art’s sake, but rather a purposeful range of abstractions expressing the complexity of light manipulation within the canon of contemporary art.

https://petertreiber.com