Guild Hall: Peter Dayton’s DARK GARDEN Installation | Site-Specific / Interview Nov 3rd @ 2 PM

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PETER DAYTON’S DARK GARDEN
Long-term installation at Guild Hall in East Hampton

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October 28, 2024 — East Hampton, NY: Guild Hall is pleased to share details of the long-term installation by artist Peter Dayton. Dark Garden is a site-specific creation for Guild Hall’s stairwell leading from the lobby to the balcony of the Hilarie and Mitchell Morgan Theater.

After a nearly decade-long career as a punk rock musician, Peter Dayton returned to visual art upon moving to East Hampton in the mid-1980s. Dayton’s exploration of flowers began when he found discarded issues of House and Garden magazine from the 1950s near his home, and his collages utilize photocopied flowers from seed catalogs, which links his practice to the work of Andy Warhol and other pop artists. He chooses visually arresting images of flowers without leaves and stems—images devoid of sentiment, emotion, or specific references—allowing the flower forms to create their own patterns.

“I became aware of Peter Dayton’s work a couple of years ago when I first visited Harper’s East Hampton location where they have a table designed by Peter,” shared Melanie Crader, Guild Hall’s Director of Visual Arts. “Intrigued, I asked around, and the artist, Christine Sciulli, kindly offered to make an introduction. Upon visiting Peter’s studio, I knew we would work together in some capacity in the future. When we decided to embark on the site-specific installation in the stairwell, I immediately thought of Peter, and we are all so pleased with how the project turned out.”

“When Melanie Crader approached me about the possibility of doing a site-specific installation in the stairwell at the new refurbished Guild Hall theater, I was very, very interested,” said artist Peter Dayton. “I made a presentation of floral images, and to my surprise, they chose the most challenging one. I had made files with my printer previously that were meant to represent flowers in a new way and detached from nature using black and odd colors and then took that as a starting point. In Dark Garden, the stark black and white repeated background lends a serious element to the piece, while the flowers on top, with their oversaturated garish colors, lure the viewer into a new, unnatural world. Nature would never look like this. One of the techniques I often use, and is again used here, is the repetition of one flower being repeated over and over. The single begonia flower in this installation is the same flower that only changes its scale and color. Dark Garden is a place I find to be slightly foreboding and weird but oddly beautiful too.”

Dayton lives and works in East Hampton, New York.

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Melanie Crader will sit down for an interview with Peter Dayton on Sunday, November 3 at 2 PM.

Tickets are $15 and can be purchased at GuildHall.org/programs.

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Visual Arts programs are supported by funding from The Michael Lynne Museum Endowment and The Melville Straus Family Endowment.

Additional support provided by Friends of the Museum: Sara Amani and Timothy Ward, Danielle Anderman, Shari and Jeff Aronson, The Artist Profile Archive, Amalia Dayan and Adam Lindemann, Cara and John Fry, Susan Lacy, Robert Longo and Sophie Chahinian, Onna House, Lisa and Richard Perry, Laurie and Martin Scheinman, Jeff and Audrey Spiegel, Hillary and Jeff Suchman, Barbara Tober, Jane Wesman and Don Savelson, Neda Young, and an anonymous donor.

Free gallery admission is sponsored, in part, by Landscape Details.

Pictured: Peter Dayton, Dark Garden, 2024. Ink on premium vinyl with low-luster laminate and collage overlay.
Photo: Gary Mamay

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GUILD HALL

Guild Hall is the cultural heart of the East End: a museum, performing arts, and education center, founded in 1931. We invite everyone to experience the endless possibilities of the arts: to open minds to what art can be; inspire creativity and conversation; and have fun.

Guild Hall has served four generations and introduced audiences to the most storied artists and performers of our time. As we approach our centennial, we have embarked on a state-of-the-art renovation to match the caliber of our artistry for twenty-first-century audiences. The facility-wide Capital Improvements Project & Campaign includes top-of-the-line physical and technological enhancements to better deliver on our mission as an artist-driven, interdisciplinary institution.

For more information about this and other programs, visit guildhall.org.

Instagram: @guild_hall | Facebook: Guild Hall of East Hampton | LinkedIn: @guildhallofeh

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