Antoine Peters

Antoine Peters created collections for the catwalk for a long time. But nowadays, his objects move between fashion, art and architecture, in which the relationship between clothing and the human body is a binding factor.

Clothing – the ultimate universal visual language – is distorted, stretched, repeated, cropped and reconfigured in all sorts of ways and surprises the viewer with a new visual language. With his work, Antoine Peters wants us to look at clothing, the world around us and ourselves differently, literally and figuratively. In doing so, he breaks through the traditional relationship between the viewer and the object.

Antoine Peters' curious objects have a disruptive effect on the viewer. They ask for delay and a change of perspective. When we all slow down a bit—because we're forced to look, feel, or think twice—we'll do or say things with more empathy and awareness, according to Peters. And we will take better care of the wondrous world that we share.

Soft Dots

Antoine Peters critical attitude towards the fashion system is often in conflict with the magical powers that he attributes to clothing and textiles. But by combining these he wants to have a positive impact.

In his search for reinterpreting fashion he started experimenting with textile abstractions. An intuitive study of color, textures and shapes resulted in the Soft Dots. Disrupting the ratio by breaking through the traditional relationship towards clothing, and putting textile on the pedestal where it belongs.

A wrinkled fabric is almost impossible to orchestrate, let alone a "Soft Dot" can be exactly duplicated, yet you experience the "zoom out" of each work as identical to the other, because of the most universal form that exists; the dot.

However, the "zoom in" reveals the manual dexterity, the many folds, and the play of light and shadow, which gives each work its own character. Because of this materiality, detailing and reliefs, the work invites you to move around and view it from different perspectives.

At the same time these dots also elicit a change of perspective outside of the realm of fashion and have meditative qualities. It certainly does for Antoine: "It is downright soothing to make them, to be completely absorbed in the textile, and to get lost in its colours, textures and folds while sculpting."

Contradictory trying to create 'a perfect dot', while achieving this through intuition, chance and randomness. The fight of Peters' fingers with the textile – tucking, folding, pushing, stretching, pulling – is visible and tangible.

The dot functions as a 'bulls-eye', a focus and hold in the turbulent ocean of textile, to then slowly disappear into it. Fittingly, the dot is the symbol of creation and a new beginning.

Antoine Peters' work has previously been exhibited in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, the Zeeuws Museum, the New Orleans museum of Modern Art (NOMA), the Museum of Pop Culture Seattle (MoPOP), OCAT Shanghai, the Fresno Art Museum California and the Bonnefantenmuseum Maastricht.

He designed collections for a.o. Kuyichi, Little Indians, Gsus and Kidscase, developed products for a.o. Fést, Forbo, Karlsson, United Nude, and Eastpak, and he teached at a diverse range of institutes such as ArtEZ Arnhem, Willem de Kooning Rotterdam, Academie voor Bouwkunst, Artemis Akademie Amsterdam, HKU Utrecht, Fashion Academy Madrid and Grafisch Lyceum Rotterdam.

Nominated for the Dutch Design Award 2022