Peter Tunney, a famous New York artist recently exhibited his new series “Dictionary Daze” at Pine Crest. Famous for his unique style of portraying ideas using mixed media and his unlimited inspiration derived from ordinary materials in life, Tunney impressed his fans with a new series of artwork inspired by dictionaries. Tunney said he had had this idea going over in his mind for years. It began while  flipping through an old dictionary over and over again, each time amazed by those accurate detailed pictures on it. Attracted by the “hidden art” inside the most widely owned book in the world, a dictionary, Tunney decided to enlarge the scales of tiny pictures inside the dictionary and provided everyone a chance to appreciate the artistic quality in them.

Tunney successfully demonstrated not only the images but also words directly from the dictionary in his mix media, underlying both important events in history and life quotes. For instance, in one piece, he skillfully combined the colorful hue with picture of a tiger and a sentence “young tigers are far more destructive than the old,” taken from the British Encyclopedia, suggesting the great potential energy owned by youth, inspiring people to work hard in order to consume these excessive energy when they are still young. Tunney innovatively presented meaningful lessons with simple wording and casual positioning to illustrate his thoughts and suggestion for youth.

As for the material used in most of his works, Tunney said he useda tons of things, ranging from waste newspaper to his own collections of historical letters. Because of his wide range of materials used in each artwork, every finished artwork is unique, which makes it valuable for collection purposes. On the other hand, by using newspapers and advertisements that already had their own meaning and design, Peter gave them new definitions, presenting “pictures inside pictures.” His viewers had to look really careful in order to find those tiny pictures contributing to the wholeness of his artwork.

Peter Tunney portrayed different themes in every painting, so it is hard to define his ideas and style in one word. However, if one word can describe his works, it is diversity. Although he made large use of mix media, he did not make them seemed monotonous; people can always find something interesting hidden in the picture itself.