Bio
Allen Peterson’s work spans the disciplines of sculpture, performance, printmaking, and public art, united by themes of the systems and interconnections at play all around us.
Peterson has enjoyed teaching at several institutions, including SCAD-Atlanta, Atlanta College of Art, University of Montevallo, in Montevallo, AL, and University of Alabama at Birmingham. He has been a visiting artist at Emporia State University in Emporia, KS; Kendall College of Art and Design, Grand Rapids, MI; and the University of Central Arkansas, Conway, AR, where he led a week-long workshop on furnace construction and moldmaking for cast iron sculpture.
From 1998 through 2001 Peterson served as a Resident Artist at Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark, in his hometown of Birmingham, AL. He was also Foundry Coordinator during the last year of his residency at Sloss. While his stay at that nonprofit teaching foundry ignited his love of molten metal, a two-month public art residency at municipalWORKSHOP, in York, AL, brought his work into the public sphere in 2005. The city of York owns two pieces by Peterson as a result, displayed in the town’s public Cherokee Park. His work is also part of the collections of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Savannah College of Art and Design, and various individual collectors.
Peterson has exhibited extensively in Southeastern galleries, universities and museums. He has also had solo and group exhibitions in New York, California, Minnesota, New Mexico, New Jersey and Illinois. Peterson enjoys working collaboratively, especially on performance art pieces. He has collaborated with or led a wide variety of artists in various performance works, including sculptors, dancers, choreographers, theatre directors, set designers, video artists, composers, musicians, pyrotechnics experts, his students, and his mentors.
Peterson has co-curated exhibitions at bare hands gallery in Birmingham, AL, and the University of Montevallo. He was the curator of The Iron Show: Contemporary Cast Iron Sculpture in the Southeast, at the Durbin Gallery of Birmingham-Southern College, Birmingham, AL. He also curated, organized, installed and promoted Transition: works by SCAD-Atlanta sculpture students, which opened at Garage Projects, Atlanta, GA, at the booming Castleberry Hills Artwalk of November 2006. Peterson has received awards for excellence in art from the University of Minnesota, where he earned his Master’s of Fine Arts, and from Birmingham-Southern College, where he earned his B.F.A. in 1994. He has been awarded Juror’s Awards in various juried shows at venues such as the Magic City Art Connection in Birmingham, AL, in 2001, and the Alternative Arts Alliance of Denver, CO in 1994.
