Peter von Tiesenhausen was born in New Westminster, British Columbia in 1959.  At an early age, his family moved north to Demmitt, Alberta where he spent his childhood working with cattle and horses and helping his father with carpentry projects.  In 1979 Peter left home to study painting at the Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary and later worked in heavy construction, resource exploration and as a placer gold miner in the Klondike before becoming a full-time practising artist in 1990. These experiences, as well as traveling to six continents and the Antarctic, have given him insight into the necessity of pursuing a sustainable future.

Peter has exhibited and lectured widely across Canada as well as in Europe, the United States and Mexico.  He has had over 50 solo and group exhibitions, which have been widely reviewed and the subject of three national television documentaries, including a one-hour award-winning film, “Elemental,” produced in 2000 for Adrienne Clarkson Presents.  His multidisciplinary practice includes painting, sculpture, drawing, printmaking, installation, event, video and performance. Peter’s work often involves the community in which he is working and utilizes the materials to be found there.  He has created several permanent and ephemeral public artworks throughout North America and in Europe and has works in many public and private collections.

The land where Peter lives constitutes his primary and ongoing artwork and in 1995 he claimed copyright over that land.  He has been successful on several occasions defending this artwork against the incursions of multinational corporate interests.  Recently he was a driving force for the construction of a sustainable timber frame straw bale community centre in his community of Demmitt, Alberta.

In the words of Clint Roenisch of Clint Roenisch Gallery, Toronto:

“Peter is a sculptor, painter, video and installation artist.  Peter von Tiesenhausen’s projects evoke the majesty and violent perfection of the natural world and its rhythms. He is interested in investing contemporary existence with a more profound connection to the radiance of nature in a manner that is neither pure ecology nor distanced irony.”