STACY PERALTA
“I was told by my sixth grade teacher that I wasn't going to make it in life, that I was going to flunk out of high school if I even made it that far. In eleventh grade at Venice High School, I discovered on an aptitude test that I was reading at a seventh-grade level, which forced me into a remedial reading class. At age sixteen, I was arrested for pointing a toy gun at a stranger, the crime being Disturbing the Peace. My choice made early in life to become a surfer and then a skateboarder only added to my estrangement from society; both were then considered anti-social dead-end sports with no future. How I got anywhere in life is anyone's guess, including my own, and how I ended up with a paintbrush in my hand at this point in my life is even beyond anything even I understand. I'm known to spend up to 10 to 12 hours a day painting simply because I love the process of being alone and doing it. These paintings simply represent my hand-built skateboards that have belonged to me since the tender age of seven. I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I enjoy painting them.” -Stacy Peralta
Stacy Douglas Peralta (b. 1957) explores his own skate history with his new paint on paper series of contemporary works. Delving within his personal collection of ephemera Stacy mines for those intangibles that delineate the line between animate and inanimate objects.
Extending and compounding on his previous accomplishments in film, skateboarding and storytelling, this artistic language may be his most personal to date. A focus on the oft discarded and decaying artifacts from the birth of skateboarding and extending to overlooked city dumpsters this contemporary collection will be debuting at the ‘Artful Dodgers’ group show, with a solo show set to open in the fall of 2024 here and Cruise Control.
Stacey lives, works, and still skates in California.