STORY BY RAPHAEL BERETTA
ILLUSTRATION BY SYDNEY KYSAR
A young six-year-old girl in Inglewood, CA, made music by banging her palms on kitchen pans and art by scribbling on the white walls of a two-bedroom apartment. Her latest home-masterpiece showcased a future-artist-imitating-artists, as she had seen her parents play instruments and paint on full canvases several times before.
A decade and a half later, against the backdrop of the canals of one of the art capitals of Europe, Peyton Burnett fully introduced herself to the world as an artist.
Peyton finished painting a piece called “Serenity”, the first of a series of works started at the Biennale, a biannual “World’s Fair” of art based in Venice, Italy. She spent thirteen hours a day in a small studio without windows and without distractions. To deter disruption, Peyton hung works in progress in front of her cubicle’s opening. The only direction to turn was inward.
“I just felt free. It was liberating. I used to think that art shouldn’t be too much about looking super deep into yourself, and what I was missing was I wasn’t telling my story. I needed to create a body of work that introduced Peyton to the world,” Peyton said.
This inspired the “Story of Me” series, a still-ongoing collection of paintings of which “Serenity” sparked. For Peyton, the series marks both a “coming-out” moment and a turning point in her visual style. Italian influences around her give way to darker shadows and dramatic depth than seen in her earlier work. The ‘story’ takes the audience through a gallery of emotions felt by its creator.
“Serenity”, a two and a half feet by three and a half feet oil painting features an emotionally-honest self-portrait of “Peyton the Artist”, with a gold infinity symbol splattered on top. The sheen of the gold was meant to capture the joy she felt in that studio. The symbol itself promised that joy would live beyond Venice.
“I drew the infinity symbol smack dab in the middle over the portrait of myself in gold. Because that's it— literally that one moment felt like infinite serenity. I was just happy and it was never ending.”
And she has brought joy back with her. Working hard in the Steel Plant, modeling for photography students, experimenting with different mediums, an elated smile always pervades Peyton’s demeanor.
She brought both figurative and literal gold from the infinite serenity found in Italy back to Marist. Elif Usuloglu, her studio neighbor, confirmed Peyton’s love for the metal. Large reflective hoop earrings and the ornately decorated acrylic nails that adorn the artist's fingers frequently feature gold; in this way, Peyton can pay homage to both her defining moments as an artist and her roots as a creative from southwest Los Angeles.
If likened to a musician in her process, Peyton transformed from a classical pianist to an improvising jazzer. Research and meticulous planning fueled her art prior to those four weeks in Venice, but within the makeshift walls of her studio space, she often found the truth of the work along the way.
Social commentary and political topics dominated her brushstrokes in the semesters preceding the Biennale. Her first art class at Marist coincided with the 2016 election, and all of the division that erupted from it.
“I unintentionally started going into artwork that spoke about the current times that we live in, and I really want people to learn about, specifically, the struggles that people of color around the world and in America have undergone,” Peyton said, “and on a positive note, how beautiful we are as a community.”
“The Art of War”, made in her first semester as an art student, depicts the political distress in the country as a bomb with a long fuse. Segregation, hate, and greed are among the catalysts for turmoil written out on the extended wick. Behind it stands a brick wall, accented by the graffiti-style Peyton was exposed to growing up.
“Peyton looks to urban graffiti as a source of inspiration for her artistic style as well as something that informs her subject matter. Often she includes text and word fragments that hint at the social commentary she depicts visually,“ Donise English, Peyton’s advisor and one of her artistic mentors at Marist said. “She is fearless and wants to do everything.”
And she is doing everything. With a love of lowriders, Peyton has played around with auto body design back home. Armed with a spray can, she seeks to address strife through murals. Fashion design remains a passion, and she has recently launched Code Studios, a streetwear brand with a brighter future.
Her vision for Code is a 24-hour hub for west-coast creatives, bringing artists from all mediums together. “Every artist has their own unique code that they use to speak or get their ideas across. That code is uniquely theirs, unbreakable,” Peyton said.
She wants to open the first incarnation back home in Inglewood, giving back to her community and supporting fellow artists. It only makes sense for a visual artist to feature a colleague’s music at their gallery opening, collaboration is survival.
“We’re all helping each other hone in on our crafts….[it’ll] definitely be a platform for other artists to come together and build on top of the voice they already have.”
Channeling an infinite serenity, Peyton moves forward with an eternity of ideas to arm fellow artists with the tools to craft a better world.
During COVID-19 stay-at-home orders, Peyton has continued to create art. “Saweetie”, a 48’’ by 48’’ stretched canvas painting produced in April, utilized Venetian gold foil. Under The Code Studios, Peyton released this and other pieces of art, along with short videos detailing her process. For more, follow @peytontheartist on Instagram.
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