The elegance of Peter Petrochko’s wood sculpture comes from the ways in which he considers the various relationships of form, pattern, color, texture, and light. Educated in architecture and sculpture, Petrochko discovered an enthusiasm for making wood objects and is continually inspired, in his words, “by the many possibilities of what a vessel might be.”
Petrochko’s work ranges from geometrically patterned, bandsawn vessels to sculpture carved from a single log. The use of the bandsaw, as well as laminating, hand-carving, and disc-sanding techniques, allow him to make three-dimensional forms directly from flat lumber. His are one-of-a-kind pieces that have both a practical and aesthetic economy of form. Some are abstract, others are organic, sculptural constructions. He draws inspiration from ancient cultures and from nature, and his elegantly simple style can give way to complex statements that create dense compositions of light, space, and mass.
Petrochko studied architecture at the University of Cincinnati, and sculpture at RISD and the Silvermine College of Art. His work is included in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Division of American Crafts), The White House Permanent Collection of American Crafts, Yale University, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, The Racine Art Museum, and the Wood Turning Center in Philadelphia. He lives and works in Oxford, Connecticut, and has been a Silvermine Guild member since 1993.
