The idea for “Run Away to Paradise”,  the upcoming exhibition at the Gallery on Greene, came from a poet. Elizabeth Bishop, who wrote in Florida ”The palm trees clatter in the stiff breeze like the bills of the pelicans. The tropical rain comes down to freshen the tide-looped strings of fading shells.”

This is the Florida and Florida Keys from which at an early age Peter Vey visited and was attracted to visually and through it’s poetry.  It was the profound beauty and idyllic weather.  Peter, born in NJ, spent Christmases and summer vacations with his family in the Sunshine State.  Visiting his grandparents and extended family of many cousins in Palm Beach was always a delight. And he has always painted scenes of the exotic flora and fauna of Florida and the Florida Keys. An alluring example of this is Key West Light, 50” x 40”.   Vey has a love of the everyday and a delight in the people and landscape of our special islands.
Thinking of the poem Florida, Vey became interested in one of the central themes of painting Paradise and everyone’s wish to escape to it.

This body of work infuses the spirit of  Elizabeth Bishop’s poem into Peter Vey’s art.
And it has become, in the words of Wall St. Journal critic Ann Landi, “a love of the spontaneity that makes his realist work so strikingly fresh.”  His work celebrates life and transforms a space into a dazzling sanctuary.  Peter’s technique is brilliant,   his composition and comprehension of the light of the Tropics is masterful.  He paints where we all wish to be and is an extremely talented chronicler of Key West and The Florida Keys.

Vey’s twenty some years with The Gallery on Greene has lead to many magazine covers, Netflix & HGTV cameos and a one man exhibit at the Newseum in Washington, DC.  Two of the works in this exhibit have recently come back from a two year sojourn in the residence of our Ambassador to Jamaica.

“Run Away to Paradise,” inspired by Elizabeth Bishop was curated by the gallery’s staff, Nance Frank & Alaen Ledesma, address that escape to Paradise we all crave. Consisting of more than 40 portrayals of the Florida Keys, the opening is Saturday, February 27th as part of the gallery’s 22th anniversary celebration. Vey has created canvases that are as dazzling as a poet’s words.

For more information:
Nance Frank 305-304-2323 or [email protected]