Peter James Hoffer

Peter Hoffer (born 1965) is a Canadian artist known for his painterly landscapes. Hoffer's deconstructivist approach – characterized by layers of paint and fragmented, reflective surfaces – challenges artistic conventions of representation. Solo exhibitions of his work have been held at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (Quebec City) and galleries in Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, London, Paris, Berlin, Boston and New York.

Life and career Peter Hoffer was born in Brantford, Ontario in 1965. Intrigued by the French Salon practice of revarnishing unsold works, he finished his work with layers of damar varnish and an epoxy and resin finish to create a reflective, dome surface. In recent years Hoffer began to experiment with abstract watercolours and deconstructivism within urban poster imagery. These compositions were exhibited as Städtisch Wald at Kurfürstenstrasse Atelier (Berlin) in 2016. Ottawa Citizen reviewer, Peter Simpson, noted: "They have a grey hardiness that projects a grand, vast, transcendent solitude," while a lone hardwood conveys "a vulnerability even in these rocks and rugged greenery". Montreal Gazette art reviewer Lynn Moore noted that the narrative produced by Hoffer's "less than spectacular" subjects – "What caused that break in the tree line on the horizon?" – "encourages the viewer to investigate the anomaly and look for meaning." His paintings are found in the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (Quebec QC) and the German Consulate (Toronto).