This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Arts & Entertainment

Architect/Painter Peter Polites Makes Waves at Millennium Gate Museum

Architect Peter Polites discusses his influences, including the Beatles, as he prepares a solo show of his paintings opening Oct. 4.

Peter Polites claims he’s not fun at parties, but judge for yourself. He was a folk singer in the '60s, he’s an accomplished architect and he has a solo exhibit of paintings opening Oct. 4 at the Millennium Gate Museum in Midtown Atlanta.

That'll sustain a conversation through a few drinks and hors d’ouvres, right?

His painting reached a new level, he said, while working as the architect for the $10 million Newington Cropsey Museum in New York.

Find out what's happening in Midtownwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“I had the rare opportunity to closely study masterpieces by the Hudson River School painters, especially Jasper Cropsey,”  Polites remarked in a release.

Despite his architectural background, his paintings are entirely of natural subjects, stormy skies, beaches, and warm sunrises.

Find out what's happening in Midtownwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

WAVES: New Paintings by Peter Polites features 20 ocean and marsh landscapes, opens October 4 and remains on view through November 5 at the Millennium Gate Museum in Midtown Atlanta, 395 17th Street in Atlantic Station. 

Extended hours for WAVES are Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; closed Sunday and Monday. Museum admission is $10 with discounts for seniors and children.

Polites earned a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1972, and then apprenticed with John Portman & Associates and spent a decade at Cooper Carey, both prominent Atlanta architectural firms. In 1985, he founded Polites & Associates and went on to design hundreds of homes, office buildings and luxury condo interiors.

The public can tour the exhibition with the artist on Saturday, Oct. 22 at 2 p.m. when museum admission is free.

Just in case you haven’t chatted with Polites at any recent parties, Patch did a cyber-interview with Atlanta’s Renaissance man.

Q: How does your architecture background influence your painting?

A: Although I started painting long before I became interested in architecture, it has been the rigorous discipline of being an architect that has influenced how I approach most challenges including painting and song writing (another hobby of mine!). For me a building becomes architecture when it inspires and provides a nurturing, positive environment that makes a difference in the lives of the people who live or work there.

Architecture has been called the “mother of all the arts” since it embodies all the senses. Its palette has structure, proportion, scale, rhythm, message, meaning, provides sensory stimulation, as well as providing shelter and safety. The objective of my art and architecture is to make that difference by inspiring, affecting, and nurturing people. The connection where art and architecture intersect is space and light.

Painting is a way of balancing right and left brain activities. Once an inspired architectural design is set in motion, most of the activity is solving meticulous engineering challenges, complying with countless restrictions and public safety concerns.

In painting the inspiration continues through every stage of the process and the end result happens faster which makes it easier for a body of work to be realized sooner. Both are great fun. For instance, the 20 paintings in the show at The Millennium Gate represent about 12 months of work. Buildings can take years.

Does your painting ever inform your architectural designs, perhaps in textures or windows?

I have noticed that any outside activities bring something to my architecture. After all, architecture is about people and how they will live or move in the space. I believe a healthy exposure to a wide diversity of life experiences brings new ideas and influences to my architecture and my art. Things like close friends, travel, raising my kids, cooking, fishing, music, and keeping up with local and world events.

Since you paint landscapes without buildings, is your painting a way of escaping the lines and structure of buildings?

It is very intentional that no buildings or people are in my paintings.  It’s important to me to keep the subject purely about nature, giving the work a timeless, open-ended quality.

Which painters and architects influence you?

Van Gogh and Monet were the first inspirations to my painting, then Picasso, Pollack, Wyeth, Hopper and Dali. The next group was Vermeer, Rembrandt, Fredrick Church, John F. Kennett and Bierstadt. Contemporaries are John Hardy (my mentor) who was my freehand teacher at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the realist painter Jacob Collins.

Architects came later. However, growing up in Savannah I connected with William Jay, living right across the street from one of his classic historic homes. In school it was Iktinos & Kallikrates -- architects of the Parthenon -- and modernist California architect Richard Neutra. The architect I have been most attracted to throughout my career is Frank Lloyd Wright, and I have traveled around the country to experience many of his buildings first hand. The architect that influenced me to become one is John Portman. 

My work is also deeply inspired by Bach, The Beatles, Miles Davis and Steve Reich.

Tell us more about your songwriting:

I was a folk singer back in the '60s in Savannah. My partner, who is now a priest, he was the dynamic one. We used to take our guitars wherever we went. We opened up our cases and started playing spontaneously. We went off to college and I didn’t do anything. Four years ago, I found a tape that was recorded of a performance of ours and then I started writing songs about Savannah. I produced a CD titled “Save Savannah.”

How do the Beatles influence your work?

The Beatles are a timeless band. Their subject matter is pretty basic, and the way they compose and structure music is always fresh. I play Beatles songs while I work, and I learn how to play them. Some have very complicated chords. One chord change can inspire a whole new visual thing. They were geniuses at what they did.

………

“Peter is really coming into his own as a painter,” remarked Rodney Mims Cook, President of the National Monuments Foundation headquartered at the Millennium Gate Museum.  Cook is a close friend and colleague of  and have collaborated on several architectural projects including the Newington Cropsey Museum and The Prince of Wales’s Foundation Monument to World Athletes commissioned for the Atlanta Olympic Games.  “I’ve admired Peter’s landscape paintings for years.  The time is right to share his talents with a national audience by introducing his new work,” Cook added.

The public is invited to a tour of the exhibition with the artist on Saturday, October 22 at 2 p.m.  Museum admission is free that afternoon.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?

More from Midtown