What do you see when
looking at the face of Buddha?
Love and peace.
Serenity and compassion.
A living icon whose spirit and wisdom are still with us.
ARTIST IN HER STUDIO
I’m Virginia Peck
PAINTER OF LIVING ICONS
I’m always challenging myself to paint from the unconscious.
I’ve explored many subjects, but I am best known for my long-running Faces of Buddha series—along with figures, horses, landscapes, and my Sketchbook Journals. My work is built in luminous layers so the image feels alive, not fixed—like you’ve arrived in the moment between breaths.
From studio to canvas
I start with an intention to paint and then making rich layers using passes of color, drips, veils, and marks I give myself a lot of texture and movement that can inspire my imagination; this way I allow my unconscious to step forward and lead me where it wants to go. I’m after that meeting point where spirit, imagination, and energy make magic.
Process (how a painting becomes itself)
I find that this process is endlessly creative, whereas, by comparison, working from my mind is so limiting. The mind just knows what it already knows. But with the Unconscious there is an infinity of possibilities. And best of all, I get to be as surprised as the viewer in what emerges out of the chaos of marks.
.
Why I paint
There was never a question that I would paint. It was a passion that started very early. A Human Design teacher once told me he thought I’d been an artist in previous lifetimes, but this incarnation was the culmination, where everything would fall into place for me to share my artistry with the world, which resonated with me deeply.
A few threads that keep returning
Faces of Buddha — a decade-plus exploration of a “living Buddha,” painted to carry the vitality of the teachings into now. Over 60 works and counting. Buddhist Art News+1
Spirits of the Trees — an early series started in the late 1990s shown in Massachusetts in 2001; a popular body of work that combines my love of painting faces emanating soul and spirit, with grand old trees, that I’ve always felt expressed their own majestic spirit and ancient presence.
Landscapes — the magnificence of nature and the spiritual Light of Source that bathes it all, putting on a continual performance for our enJOYment.
Sketchbook Journals—I started the journals in 1998, mostly working intuitively from the unconscious. They are an ongoing passion to this day.
The Deep Within the Deep-VIDEO
Faces of Buddha
Landscapes
Sketchbook Journals
Spirits of the Trees
REFLECTIONS FROM COLLECTORS
SO BEAUTIFUL!!! SO PEACEFUL!!! SO JOYFUL!!! –NC Portland, Oregon
I just wanted to say that your work and website are absolutely compelling as well as beautiful. I am awestruck.- GW
BIOGRAPHY
Virginia Peck grew up in New Jersey, where she enriched her early art education through classes at the Princeton Art Association.
During her time at George School, a Quaker prep school in Newtown, Pennsylvania, she continued her extracurricular art studies with Saturday classes at the Philadelphia College of Art and summer sessions at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art.
Later, in Boston, Massachusetts, she earned a degree in painting from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA).
She also pursued additional coursework at the Massachusetts College of Art, the Art Institute of Boston, and at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth.
For a decade, Virginia worked as a freelance illustrator, with clients including Reebok, The Boston Globe, Doubleday Books, and others. In 1997, once her children were grown, she returned to her passion for fine art painting.
Since then, she has held numerous solo and two-person exhibitions, and her work has entered many private collections.
She has exhibited with galleries such as Newbury Fine Arts in Boston, Alpers Fine Art in Andover, and participated in the annual alumni sale at the SMFA.
She also has a permanent display of her Buddha paintings at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, Stockbridge, MA.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2015 Newbury Fine Art, Color Personified, Boston, MA; Four-Person Show
2014 Aryaloka Buddhist Center, Newmarket, NH; Solo Show
2013 Qi Boston, MA; Group Show
2012 Plymouth State University, Plymouth, NH; Solo Show
2010 Newbury Fine Art, Boston, MA; Group Show
2009 Newbury Fine Arts, Liberty Hotel, Summer Gallery Night Series, Boston, MA; Solo Show
2009 Andover Chapel, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; Solo Show
2008 Newbury Fine Art, Boston, MA; Group Show
2008 – 2007 Gallery Anthony Curtis, Virginia’s Buddha Room, Boston, MA, Solo Show
2007 Gallery Anthony Curtis, The Encounter of Buddha, Boston, MA, Solo Show
2007 Easy Street Gallery, Nantucket, MA; Group Show
2007 Powers Gallery, Acton, MA; Group Show.
2006 Alpers Fine Art, Sites & Insights, Andover, MA; Two-Person Show
2006 New Art Center, Icons + Altars, Newton, MA; Invitational
2006 Revolving Museum, Artroots, Middlesex Beat, Lowell, MA; Benefit Auction
2006 Kripalu, Center for Yoga and Health, 14 Buddha Paintings, Lenox, MA; Solo Show
2005 Alpers Fine Art, Twenty-four Meditations on Stillness & Light, Andover, MA; Two-Person Show
2005 South Shore Art Center, New Gallery Artists, Cohasset, MA
2004 Cambridge Art Assoc., The Human Condition, Cambridge, MA; Invitational
2003 School of the Museum of Fine Arts, December Sale, Boston, MA,
2003 New Art Ctr. Icons + Altars, Newtonville, MA: Group Show
2003 Upstairs@Johnsons Art Gallery, Elusive Form, Boston, MA: Group Show
2003 Newton Free Library, Earth Elements, Newton, MA: Solo Show
2003 The Pasche Gallery, Universally: Nature & Each Other, Wellesley, MA; Group Show
2002 Studio Soto Benefit Auction, Studio Soto, Boston, MA; Invitational
2002 Perrin Gallery, Dog-oids and Man-Beasts, Brookline, MA; Solo Show
2002 Alpers Fine Art, Surfaces Rendered, Andover, MA; Two-Person Show
2002 South End Open Studios, Boston, MA;
2001 Alpers Fine Art, FaceScapes & IsleScapes, Andover, MA; Two-Person Show
2001 Cambridge Art Assoc., Red, Cambridge, MA; Invitational
2000 New Art Center, Icons + Altars, Newton, MA; Invitational
2000 Concord Art Assoc., The Meaning In Landscape, Concord, MA; Invitational
2000 Alpers Fine Art, Life Forms, Andover, MA; Two-Person Show
2000 Cambridge Art Assoc., The Book as Art: Artists’ Books in New England, Cambridge, MA
1999 Museum School December Exhibition and Sale, Boston, MA; Invitational.
1999 Cambridge Art Assoc., Red, Cambridge, MA; Invitational
1998 Inside Out Gallery, Solos and Duets, Newton, MA; Invitational.
1996 The Workbook Wall-to-Wall Art Gallery Show #8, New York, NY
GALLERY REPRESENTATION
1999 – 2009 Alpers Fine Arts, Andover, MA; Peter Alpers, Director
2007 Powers Gallery, Acton, MA; Lawrence Powers, Director
2007 Gallery Anthony Curtis, Boston, MA: Anthony Shu, Director
2007 Easy Street Gallery, Nantucket, MA
2008 – 2015 Newbury Fine Art, Boston, MA: Liz Novick, Director
PUBLICATIONS
2011 100 Artists of New England by E. Ashley Rooney, Schiffer Publishing
2011 Cover art for a poetry book, Nevertheless by Wendy Videlock
2010 Publish, Anima, a Visual Journal by Virginia Peck
2010 Artsy Shark Blog, Featured Artist – Virginia Peck.
2010 Still Savvy Blog, Aug. 3, 2010, Seven Years for Excellence – an Interview with Virginia Peck.
2008 Fit Yoga Magazine, December 2008, The Gift of Serenity by Lorraine Shea.
2008 The Boston Globe, January 19, 2008, Artist Expresses Peace Using Buddha by Rich Barlow.
2007 Artscope Magazine, May/June, Gallery Anthony Curtis – The Encounter of Buddha: Antique Buddhas and Contemporary Paintings by Virginia Peck by Britt Beedenbender.
2007 Art New England, Feb./March, Sites & Insights opening Oct. 28, 2006, Alpers Fine Art, Andover, MA.
2007 Middlesex Beat, January, Buddha Faces Unfold by Jane Hallowell
2006 Lowell Sun, October 27, Who Art Thou column, Buddha’s Head a Constant Source of Inspiration by John Greenwald.
2006 artMatters – School of the Museum of Fine Arts alumni magazine online, named as one of the artists who address spirituality in their artwork.
2005-2006 Kripalu Winter Catalog, cover art, Serene Buddha, with artist bio.
2005 Boston’s South Shore, photography book by Greg Derr, 2005. Virginia Peck in Rockland studio.
2005 Cohasset Mariner, March 25, 2005, Best Bet, New Gallery Artists Show, South Shore Art Center
2004 Boston/New England Gallery Guide, November 2004, Two Venues, Three Exhibits, shows at Alpers Fine Art and the Boston International Fine Art Show.
2004 Patriot Ledger, November 19, 2004, Opening Up Artistically by Courtney Hollands
2002 Boston Globe, West, November 14, 2002, Assignment yields unique works of art by Leslie Anderson
2002 Metro West Weekly, Newton TAB, May 15, 2002, Crossing the Threshold of Art, by Valentina Zic,
2000 Brandeis Review, Alumni Magazine, Vol. 20, #4, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, Alper’s Fine Art