Peter Coffin was born on 1972 in Berkeley, California. currently lives and Works in New York. Coffin's work encourages the viewer to negotiate alternative modes of consciousness and acknowledge the subjectivity of science. The centerpiece of the exhibition is a greenhouse installed inside the gallery as a performance space in which musicians and sound artists communicate with plants. In this work, no attempt is made to validate the evidence that already exists to support the phenomenon that plants respond to music. Rather the performers are there simply to engage intuitively with the plants.

A calendar at the entrance of the gallery lists scheduled performances. A soundtrack designed for the plants' enjoyment plays when performers are not interacting directly with the installation. Around the gallery are a series of portraits, unframed photographs of auras, resting on shelves like specimens displayed in a laboratory. The photographs are taken with a specialized Polaroid camera developed to capture auric color fields.

The subjects of the auras have been removed so that only the color fields that comprise the auras remain. These photographs give substance to that which is normally invisible. Lining the walls behind the aura photographs is a red marker drawing that resembles a flow chart. The drawing was made in the spirit of automatic drawing as a sub-conscious channel. Like the aura photographs, the wall drawing also gives substance to the invisible, in this case telepathy itself.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2007
• Tree Pants, The Historical Society of New York
• Herald Street, London

2005

• Hello Headspace, Galleria Fonti, Naples, Italy
• New Work, Living Room D Lyx Gallery, Malmo, Sweden
• Absinthe Drinker, The Wrong Gallery, New York, curated by Ali Subotnick / Lisa Ivorian Gray

2004

• It Chooses You, Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York

2002

• Perfect If On, Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York

1995

• Peter Coffin: New Work, University of California, Davis Art Gallery, Davis

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2001

• Artpact 2001, The Flophouse, New York, , sponsored by DAAD

2000

• Get Empty, Regina Gouger Miller Gallery, The Purnell Center for the Arts, Pittsburgh, PA
• Interchange: Simultaneity in Action, John Adams Foundation for Art, Amsterdam

1999
• Interspatiality, the Frame Gallery, Pittsburgh
• Inside/Outside with Birds, The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
• Deep6, Ewart Gallery, Pittsburgh

1998

• Group Exhibit, Kunst Seminar Akademie, the Haid, Metzingen, Germa

Conclusions:

Coffin's work encourages the viewer to negotiate alternative modes of consciousness and acknowledge the subjectivity of science. The centerpiece of the exhibition is a greenhouse installed inside the gallery as a performance space in which musicians and sound artists communicate with plants.

What to Do Next...

If you want any information about Peter Coffin or looking for his paintings please visit us on http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/peter_coffin.htm