Renowned for his audaciously precarious but surprisingly robust graphite sculptures, Peter Trevelyan here reveals a major change in direction with new conceptual concerns, the use of recycled plastic, and the introduction of colour. We are proud to present the first solo exhibition of this significant evolution in his practice.

Differentiate is about the act and art of looking, things breaking into small components, finding, and becoming aware of form that may at first be difficult to see. Using recycled fine plastic thread Trevelyan has created spidery, finely drawn, organic, biomorphic, cloud like sculptural forms that, like his earlier pencil lead sculptures, generate awe.

The genesis of the shift was Trevelyan's increasing awareness of the ubiquitous spread and pernicious invisibility of micro-plastics and their effects on the environment and our bodies. "I have always been interested in barely perceptible structures and it was this idea of the nearly invisible colonisation of space and biology by this material that really informed all these works."

Methodologically the work employs the same building blocks and the mathematical repetition of form as his older work, but what we see here is a distinctive shift from an interest in art history, linear perspective, architecture and geometry to an engagement with issues confronting the world. 

Trevelyan graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Canterbury in 2000 and completed a PhD at Massey University's School of Fine Arts in 2014. His work has been shown in an impressive array of public gallery exhibitions and public places nationally and as far afield as the United Arab Emirates. His work is in public and private collections in New Zealand, Australia and Hong Kong.

Writing about the ten year survey of his work at the Sarjeant Gallery last year, curator Greg Donson said:  "Like many of the best makers, Trevelyan defies categorisation. He is an artist, mathematician, spider, magician in equal parts..."