Peter Cleverley : Between Transience and Eternity

This beautiful, heavily illustrated book traces Peter Cleverley’s formation and evolution as an artist, identifying the myriad influences that aroused in him a profound sense of the transience of human life and the paradoxical complexity of the human condition.

The portrait that results shows how Cleverley’s sense of the human condition has allowed him to convey it symbolically in a way that simultaneously captures not only the fragility of human life, but also its joys. His art communicates an appreciation of the beauty of this world and the gift of being alive, together with the value of art as a means of transcending mutability. Cleverley is a painter whose work is destined to be recognised for making an important contribution to the history of art in Aotearoa New Zealand.