An interview with Vital Peeters

Q – Could you introduce yourself briefly to the readers?

My name is Vital Peeters. For 20 years I have had a glass studio in Oxford and have done hundreds of commissions for stained glass panels around Oxford and abroad.
For 10 years I have been sculpting in stone.

Oxford Town Hall windows by Vital Peeters

Sitting room window by Vital Peeters

Q - How did you become interested in art?

From as soon as I could hold a pencil, I was drawing and it grew from there.

Q - What inspires you most as an artist?

Everything.

Nimbus (alabaster) by Vital Peeters

Q - What is your favourite medium or media? Why?

Glass, stone, anything to draw with. Every medium has its magical properties.

Q - Could you tell us some more about your work?

Most of my work is in glass and lead and is taylor made for apertures in buildings, mostly private. My largest to date is a 8 metre stretch of windows for St Christopher’s Hospice in London.

St Christopher's window, London - by Vital Peeters

My sculptures are mostly free style, and created in the sculptress, Pat Elmore’s studios (Longcote, nr Faringdon) one day a week. They are abstract and figurative and carved out of all types of stone.

Sleeping dragon by Vital Peeters

Q - How would you define your style?

My work often incoprorates all manner of inter-linking curves and circles and is distinguished by the use of contrasting textures.

Q - What are your influences; artists from the past or present who inspire you?

My influences are from the modernist period, with deco touches.
Like Picasso, I am also very interested in tribal art.

The onlookers 2008, linconshire stone by Vital Peeters

Q - How do you choose the subjects of your works?

Exhibitions, magazines, life.

Q- How do you prepare yourself for an exhibition or a show like the Open Studios?

99% perspiration…

Striding bird (marble cast) by Vital Peeters

Q- Did you take part in the Swindon Open Studios in the past?

No

Q - Are there territories (media, subjects, etc.) you want to explore in the coming years?

Recently, I have been doing some casting in glass in master workshops.
Welding metal is also in my mind.

Wing by Vital Peeters

Q - As an artist, what would be your dream?

To carry on as I am doing now.

Q - Could you share one thing that you have learnt in your own art practice that would be useful to other artists?

Always expect things to go wrong, then to have a success is always a triumph.
Never stop trying to find a new way of creating your work.

Make sure you visit Vital Peeters' website to see more of his works.