Peter Wayne Lewis

Peter Wayne Lewis (born 1953) is a Jamaican-American contemporary artist known for his large-scale abstract paintings, many of which are combined to form singular floor-to-ceiling works of art. Lewis has contributed paintings to exhibitions internationally, and has presented solo shows in Europe, North America, Asia and especially China.

Series Development and Exhibitions
Lewis's first exhibition of large paintings in grid format (a "series"), “Beijing Booster Griot,” opened at the Sunshine International Art Museum in the Songzhuang Art Colony in Beijing, China in 2008. “Beijing Booster Griot” appeared again in a solo exhibition in 2015, at the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami, along with additional "Booster" series paintings.

From January to March 2016, UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing presented two parallel exhibitions showcasing the works of Lewis and Frederick J. Brown (1945-2012), "two artists of the African diaspora whose expressive paintings draw inspiration from their respective cultural backgrounds and shared interest in jazz and spirituality." In 1988, Brown had become the first American artist to display his work at the National Museum of China. Along with Brown's work, Lewis exhibited two major suites, each comprising fifteen paintings. "There is an idea in string theory that all matter exists as vibrating strings moving in multiple dimensions. This idea links physics to my great love, music. The vibration of the strings creates harmony - the universe is a symphony of color and light and different time signatures," Lewis said. Titled "Monk Time Suite" (2013) and "Buddha Plays Monk" (2012-2015), the two suites were painted in China. The exhibition, the first time the works had been shown publicly, made use of the high walls of UCCA's nave to display the groupings in large grids. The "Buddha Plays Monk" suite consisted of 15 paintings, each measuring 42 by 36 inches (107cm by 91cm), arranged in a three-by-five grid. A group of six paintings titled "False Vacuum" (2015), inspired by the ideas of MIT physicist Alan Guth, was also displayed.

In 2019 Lewis presented the "Beijing Booster" series again as a solo exhibition at the Delaware Contemporary. The painting series "Bending Time Paintings" was first exhibited in a solo exhibition at Red Gate Gallery in Beijing, China in 2019. He presented an online exhibition of a variety of paintings at Skoto Gallery in New York City in 2021. His next series, "Buoyancy," had its debut at Skoto Gallery in New York City in early 2023. The series was prompted by a trans-Atlantic voyage from Florida to Venice, Italy in 2022, an opposite-direction Middle Passage his ancestors would have made between Africa and Jamaica. "This experience transformed my sensibilities and humanness. The 'Buoyancy' paintings, as all of my work, deal with stasis, trying to find some sort of balance and grounding. Being an immigrant from Kingston, Jamaica and migrating to the USA in 1962 forever changed me and my sense of place and meaning. Balancing through the physics of being buoyant on a vessel across an aqueous body, as well as moving through the cosmos in this world never escapes me."

Art Career


Lewis met Norman Parish in 1991, the owner of a gallery for Black artists in Georgetown, Washington, DC who subsequently represented him and presented his work. Shortly after Lewis moved to the east coast in early 1992, he was introduced to artist Lorenzo Pace. Pace introduced him to an array of artists and jazzmen in the Bowery and the New York City area, including poet Amiri Baraka.

Later in 1992 he became the artist-in-residence in Viechtach, Bavaria, Germany where he produced 70 works in two months for an exhibition at the Kunsthaus Ostbayern. In 1993, he participated in his first exhibition in New York City at the Stephen Rosenberg Gallery.

In 1995 Lewis produced three solo exhibitions with his "Black and Blue Swan Suites" paintings. The first was called the "Blue Swan Suite" paintings at Rosenberg + Kaufman Fine Art, which was his first New York City one-person exhibition. The second was called the "Blue & Black Swan Series" at the Frederick Spratt Gallery in San Jose, California. The third show, "Peter Wayne Lewis: Paintings," was mounted at the Parish Gallery in Georgetown, Washington, DC. In addition, the "Black Swan Suite" was included in the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition "Caribbean Visions," curated by Dr. Samella Lewis.

In 2000, his exhibition at Rosenberg + Kaufman Fine Art featured his new "Fields Series." His next body of work, "Strings," was based on quantum physics string theory and jazz music. He first exhibited "Strings" in 2003 in New York City. That same year, he assembled a solo show at the Stella Jones Gallery in New Orleans. Lewis was a 2005 artist-in-residence in Eschlkam, Germany that culminated in the opening of the Kunst Pyramid project "Licht und Shatten - Light and Shadow," sponsored by the state of Bavaria. Lewis’ work appeared again as an invited artist in the Biennial at the National Gallery of Jamaica in 2006.

Lewis’s “Eye of the Magnet” painting was exhibited in the 5th Beijing International Art Biennale in 2012.

In October 2023, his solo exhibition at the b. sakata garo gallery in Sacramento included work on canvas as well as scroll paintings executed on rice paper. Lewis was the Kingsley Art Club Speaker Series lecturer that same month.

Life and Teaching Career
Lewis was born in Kingston, Jamaica and immigrated to Sacramento, California with his parents in 1962. As a boy in the 1950s, Lewis wanted to be a musician akin to his father, a jazz pianist. “I grew up listening to music and have a great appreciation for it, but I did not have that gift,” he said, and instead channeled his love of music into large-scale abstract paintings. He received his M.A.in Painting from San Jose State University in 1979, and became an American citizen in1983. He began his teaching career in 1989 as a visiting professor of painting at the San Francisco Art Institute, followed by a guest professorship in painting at San Jose State University. He then became a professor of painting at the University of California, Berkeley in 1991 and moved to the New York City area later that year. He taught at Syracuse University from 1993 until 1995, when he was appointed Professor of Painting at the Massachusetts College of Art & Design (MCAD) in Boston. He was a tenured professor for 25 years, serving as Department Chairman for Fine Arts 2D from 2006-2009. He retired from MCAD as a professor emeritus in 2020.

Lewis has a wide range of influences, from his early attraction to Japanese art to his lifelong interest in music, the legacy of his father, a professional musician who played jazz piano and organ. Later in his career he became interested in theoretical cosmology and quantum physics (especially string theory), concepts which pushed his work into new directions in the series "Strings."

Selected Solo Exhibitions
1984  Paintings, Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara, CA

1986  Paintings, San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA

1987  Recent Abstract Images, Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art, Monterey, CA

1990  Works on Paper, Kunsthaus Ostbayern, Viechtach, Germany

1995  Blue and Black Swan Suite Selections, Parish Gallery, Washington, DC; Black Swan Suite, Frederick Spratt Gallery, San Jose, CA, Blue Swan Suite Paintings, Rosenberg + Kaufman Fine Art, New York, NY

1997  Replicant, Rosenberg + Kaufman Fine Art, New York, NY

2000  Fields, Rosenberg + Kaufman Fine Art, New York, NY

2002  Dream Paintings, Parish Gallery, Washington, DC (now part of the Smithsonian Institution)

2003  Paintings, Stella Jones Gallery, New Orleans, LA; Strings, Rosenberg + Kaufman Fine Art, New York, NY

2008  Booster Paintings, Galerie Im Cordonhaus, Cham, Germany; Grand: The Booster Paintings, JAYJAY, Sacramento, CA

2009  Paintings, Promo-Arte, Tokyo, Japan

2011  Paintings from Middle Earth Part 2, Matthias Kuper Galleries, Beijing, China; Paintings from Middle Earth Part 1, JAYJAY, Sacramento, CA

2012 Paintings from Middle Earth Part 3, Promo-Arte, Tokyo, Japan

2013 Paintings from Middle Earth 4, Skoto Gallery, New York, NY; Strings, Matthias Kuper Galleries, Stuttgart, Germany

2015 The Booster Paintings, Museum of Contemporary Art-North Miami, FL. ; The Brain Paintings, Skoto Gallery, New York, NY

2015/16 Peter Wayne Lewis & Frederick J. Brown, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA), Beijing, China

2019 The Bending Time Paintings – From Kingston to Beijing, Red Gate Gallery, Beijing, China

2019/20 Beijing Booster Paintings, The Delaware Contemporary, Wilmington, DE

2021 Booster Selection, Skoto Gallery, New York, NY

2023 Buoyancy, Skoto Gallery, New York, NY; “Kingston to Sacramento: a Painter’s Journey,” b. sakata garo gallery, Sacramento, CA

Selected Group Exhibitions
1995  Caribbean Visons, curator Dr. Samella Lewis, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC

1997  Seeing Jazz, Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, Washington, DC

2000  Soon Come: The Art of Contemporary Jamaica, Mid-American Arts Alliance

2004  National Biennial, National Gallery of Jamaica, Kingston, Jamaica

2006  30th Anniversary & National Biennial Exhibition, Curator: Dr. David Boxer, National Gallery of Jamaica

2008  Inaugural Exhibition, International Curator: Peter Wayne Lewis

2012  5th Beijing International Art Biennale, National Museum of China, Beijing

2018  Drawn (over), The Museum of Contemporary Art, Vojvodina, Serbia; Monumental, JAYJAY, Sacramento, CA

2019  38 Degrees, Red Gate Gallery, Beijing, China

2020  Color Memory, Red Gate Gallery, Beijing, China; Prizm Art Fair, Miami Art Week

2021  In Praise of Zen, Tatami Art Museum, Eiheiji, Japan; Tacit Facet: Small and Mighty, Brookline Arts Center, Curator Camilø Álvårez of Samson

2022  The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, AFRIKIN ART 2022, Maison AfriKin, Miami, FL; Border Free, Red Gate Gallery, Beijing, China; Countdown Series 4, Red Gate Gallery, Beijing, China; 30th Anniversary Group Show, Skoto Gallery, New York, NY