"My newest body of work is based on a collection of lead soldiers my father assembled over the course of his life. I was surprised when I
inherited them to see how many depicted Arab and North African soldiers. There were Zouaves, Saracenes, Mamaluks and Ottoman Turks. It
struck me as strange that we have been demonizing certain cultures forever. That even in child’s play the exotic could take on a menacing and
evil aspect.

My first instinct was to look closer. I take macro photographs of the figures with raking light to heighten their effect and to exaggerate the
distortions in the figures. I then use the photographs as a starting point for a series of paintings that would be larger than life. The scale is
important to me because I want to reverse the roles of viewer and subject and have the toys loom over us. A toy Buckingham Palace guard can
tower over the viewer like an equestrian sculpture. The backgrounds have varied from suggestions of landscapes to more familiar still life shelf
settings. They can appear almost real and at other times more in keeping with the sculpture as still life tradition.

The most exciting aspect of the blow-ups for me is the ways in which the figures become distorted by scale. Hands and feet appear to have
been mangled, the pockmarks of missing paint looks like shrapnel wounds. Faces that seemed acceptable as miniatures become grotesques
when enlarged, swords become chain saws, rifles can become candy canes. What was serious appears absurd and the innocent become
morbid. Riflemen teetering on their wobbly stands becomes a metaphor for the instability of colonialist thinking and the entire project takes on
the feeling of some horrific déjà vu. It’s frightening to think that so much animosity can be embedded in a child’s toy."
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Peter drake
Tassel 2008
82 x 82
Acryllic On Canvas
Waiting
2014
Acrylic on Canvas
42 x 48 inches
Day For Night
Acrylic on Canvas, 65 x 65 inches
Courtesy of Linda Warren Projects
                         Four Riders  by Peter Drake 2012,  111.5  x 147.5 in Acrylic
on canvas
Courtesy of Linda Warren Projects
Station Master
2014
Acrylic on Canvas
42 x 52 inches
Steamer, 2014
Acrylic on Canvas
52 x 42 inches
Linda Warren Projects
Do it Yourself
2008
Acrylic on canvas
67 x 57 inches
Tripod
2008
49 x 65
Acrylic On Canvas
Burnoose
2008
82 x 58
Acrylic On Canvas
Bayonette
2008
48 x 64
Acrylic On Canvas
Pyramid
2008
20 x 16
Acrylic On Canvas
Doughboy
2008
20 x 16 Acrylic On Canvas
Babylon Assault
2006
29 x 28
Acrylic On canvas
Overlook
2007
89 x 117
Acrylic On Canvas
Annunciation
2005
Acrylic On Canvas
62 x 65