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“Dream Bird,” one of Chad Pollpeter’s art pieces, will be on display Friday at the Larimer Arts Center in Palatka.
Chad Pollpeter finds his happy place to be in his art studio listening to music.
“It is where I work best, creating paintings I am proud of,” said the artist, who lives in Ocoee.
Pollpeter will be the featured artist at an opening reception from 6-8 p.m. Friday at the Larimer Arts Center, 216 Reid St. in Palatka. The event is free and open to the public.
Dan Askew, a curator at Larimer and a studio art professor at Florida School of the Arts in Palatka, said he was drawn to Pollpeter’s work.
“I immediately became nostalgic for when I was a teen in the early 1980s and reading a lot of science fiction,” he said. “His paintings could easily be book covers for science fiction novels, but they also should have a popular appeal.”
Askew said Pollpeter’s illustrative style utilizes elegant and ethereal flowing forms with subjects including flora, fauna, the human body and the imagination.
“Most impressive to me though is Pollpeter’s ability to produce a tangible sense of the mystical and prophetic,” he said. “His work at times could be a little unsettling, but never at the loss of established perceptions of beauty.”
Pollpeter said he has been drawing for as long as he can remember and attributes his mother’s creativity and her working with him and his siblings on craft projects as his beginning in the art world.
“My father used to bring home old reams of large green and white perforated printer paper from work that I could sit on the floor and draw on,” he said. “I was involved in art classes all through high school and college. I started drawing for the most part then transitioned to painting in college and then into my art career.”
Pollpeter received a degree in art education from Florida State University in 1994.
Pollpeter currently works in acrylic on canvas and has taught traditional art classes at Full Sail University for the last 17 years.
He is looking forward to his first exhibit in Palatka.
“It is always nice to introduce my artwork to a new area,” he said. “Hopefully, the people of Palatka will enjoy my creations.”
Pollpeter’s work has been displayed mostly in Florida from Tampa to Miami but mostly in the Orlando area. He has collectors all over the U.S. and a couple of pieces in Europe. One of his pieces, he said, is owned by August Busch III, the former owner of Budweiser.
Pollpeter describes his artwork as introspective.
“I think my work that is being exhibited would fall into a figurative/surrealist aspect,” he said. “My influences are definitely surrealist artists like (René) Magritte, (Salvador) Dalí, (H.R.) Giger and (Zdzisław) Beksiński. I have an appreciation for the sci-fi genre of movies, which is an influence.”
For Pollpeter, working at his home studio and being around his two college-aged children and wife of 27 years is the best.
“Sometimes they come in the studio and just hang out,” he said. “Sometimes they just sit and watch me work while listening to music with me. Other times, they come in and I stop waiting for a bit and we just talk. Art is all about communication and sharing ideas, whether for fun or political or just to be creative. I enjoy creating and talking about artwork.”
Pollpeter hopes those who attend the exhibit will enjoy seeing something they might not see on a regular basis.
“I hope some of it makes people think or reflect,” he said. “I don’t consider anything too weird or odd, but it is not something you would see in your typical home decor as my son pointed out to me.”
