Peter Vincent

Peter Vincent's work represents forty years of photographic and visual exploration, with references to the American landscape, minimalist and formalistic abstract images, and popular culture. For the past twenty years, he has focused on the unique American hot rod culture, an interest since his grade school days in California. His work has centered on the land speed racing, which was, and is, at the roots of the hot rod culture.

In the 1930s rodders first gathered on the dry lakebeds of southern California to race. It was at this same period of time that Ansel Adams and Brett Weston helped form the f64 Group of photographers in northern California. This group of very serious and dedicated fine art photographers supported the expressive potential of straight, sharp, un-manipulated, black & white photography. Both of these cultural and artistic forms of expression had a profound and lasting effect on Vincent's life, but they remained separate but equal passions.

During the 1980s and 1990s, these values and beliefs began to coincide and finally, during the past decade, Vincent has integrated these philosophies to refocus his vision, embracing his roots in modern, and traditional, photography, as well as his roots with the hot rod culture. In his photography this convergence captures a feeling of the timelessness of the open western landscape, which reinforces the idea that these photographs could have been created at any time during the past 50 to 60 years.

Vincent seems to be returning to the roots of the hot rod culture as well as his foundations in traditional black & white photography, satisfying his inner urge to bring both of these passions together.