Matthew Peake

My first "formal" education in studio arts came in college at Stanford University in 1971-1975, where I took courses in art history, drawing, and design. It was in the design course where my instructor advised me toconsider a career in art, based upon my work in his class. As the timing
wasn't right, however, I decided to finish my major in Chemistry and took an "Incomplete" for a grade rather than drop the design course. I went on to graduate with a B.S. in Chemistry, to become a physician, to marry, and to help raise two boys. But something kept beckoning to me all those years, so when our 2 sons were on their own more of the time, I began my "informal" education in studio arts in 1995, at the age of 42, by studying with local established artists. But the desire to paint for more than just a few hours a week, our sons heading off to college, and that "Incomplete" on my college transcript, all conspired to help me embark on a new career in June 2006.

I am a living being. I am a man. I am a son, husband, father, friend, doctor, and more. I am now, also, an artist, alive at an exciting period of time in earth's evolution and in the cultural changes of its inhabitants. People are my inspiration. The human form, in its many poses, excites me. Although I am moved by the natural places that we sentient beings discover, cultivate or trod on, I love more to paint us in these settings.