Peter Dykhuis
Personal Relics
3 January - 1 Februrary
Fridays – Sundays: 12 – 6 pm (or by appointment)
Opening reception: Saturday 3 January, 2 – 6 pm
Artist talk and closing gathering: Sunday 1 February, 3 pm
Artist will be present every Friday and Sunday during the exhibition
Personal Relic #6 (Memory Banks) 2025, archived objects with encaustic treatments, 14” x 47” installed
The exhibition Personal Relics builds on Dykhuis’ previous work where he collaged envelopes, personal notes and other paper ephemera with representations of maps, flags, weather data, and military references in encaustic wax paint. These combined the minutia of his personal life overlaid with landscapes of the political and economic world.
Personal Relics adds physical objects to the mix. These include things that were used by him or touched his body. For example: patches of favorite shirts, dead cell phones, positive Covid tests plus medical records, personal grooming and health maintenance objects, worn out wallets and other objects that Dykhuis collected along the way.
During recent visits to Italy, Dykhuis’ interest in Medieval and early-Renaissance culture was supercharged in the cathedrals, chapels, cloisters, and living museums, particularly in Siena and Florence. Here, sacred Catholic iconography rubbed up against the secular economic and civic-pride-driven power battles of competing merchant families and cities. He also became mesmerized with the Medieval faith in holy relics due to their believed mystical powers. For example, a nail from the crucifix or Saint Catherine of Siena’s pinky finger.
Of equal interest is the tension between the sacred and secular when feuding civic leaders and captains of industry were laid to rest in tombs embedded in cathedral floors – embellished with their heraldic crests, insignia, and symbols of their worldly dynasties.
Dykhuis’ personal objects are deemed by him to be relics drawn from his plebian life. They are overlaid with stripes and checkerboard grids that merge the graphic components of Medieval heraldry with modernist, minimalistic painting.
Personal Relic #6 (Memory Banks) 2025 (detail)
Dykhuis also repurposed previous art works and collaged parts into new ones. Cognizant of his mortality, nothing is sacred, everything is in play… but his personal ‘stuff’ still engages in the social and political world with critical curiosity.