Xan Peters studied Paleontology at the University of Montana for three years before switching to Studio Art and Museum Studies. It was here that the synergies between the worlds of art and science collided for him. He received his MFA from Tufts, where he taught painting after graduating. He now teaches painting at the University of Tampa.
 
Xan Peters also uses the skull as a symbol of lost corporeality and truth. He sculpts fine white porcelain to create skulls of extinct animals. They are smooth, almost translucent, and etched with the stories of the species’ lives when they walked on Earth. These etchings, a kind of hieroglyphics of the artist's creation,  remind us that these animals had profound and distinct existences that have been forgotten or mythologized. These works serve as a voice for the voiceless, and as an insistence that we acknowledge our own powerlessness to tell our stories after we are gone.
 
Tasmanian Tiger, extinct 1936
2024
8 x 3 x 4 1/2 in
Porcelain Ceramic
 
Persecuted by Australian settlers from killing livestock. Largest modern carnivorous marsupial. Last of an ancient group of mammals that had survived in Australia in isolation from dogs and cats.
 
Contact Ellen at ellen@darcysimpsonartworks.com or 201-452-7101 for in hand description or shipping information. Available for pick up in Hudson, NY.