Peter Edlund - He Who Sleeps (Gowanus)

Peter Edlund - He Who Sleeps (Gowanus)
  • Title: He Who Sleeps (Gowanus)
  • Dimensions: this painting is a visual translation of the place-name Gowanus. The name comes from the Lenape chief
  • Materials: commentEmail:
  • Primary Medium: Guwan
  • Year Created: whose name meant \he who sleeps.\
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Artwork Description


Oil on canvas, 48"x72", a visual translation of the place name Gowanus. The name comes from a Lenape chief, Guwan, whose name meant "he who sleeps." I have added a sleeping Lenape man on the far left of the painting. The scene is my interpretation of what the Gowanus Creek region may have looked like prior to its urbanization when it was a tidal marsh.

Peter Edlund

Peter Edlund

Narrative Account Peter Edlund’s paintings draw from a wide range of artistic sources to reinterpret landscape with a political overlay. Since 1980 he has used nature and the landscape as a metaphor for such topics as: the human struggle of life and death in the time of AIDS, and the revision of history, focusing on American romanticism. Often his work commented on racism and issues of invisibility. Since 2005 he has been researching indigenous American languages and cultures to understand the origin of place-names in the US -- words that have become an underlying part of our geography, but whose original meanings and sources are lost. From his research, he makes painted landscape translations of these names. In 2007 the MacDowell Colony commissioned him to create a public art project for the Town Library of Peterborough, NH. He painted an 11’ x 16’ mural which visually “translated” the local Penacook place-names. Grants include a Pollack-Krasner in 2006 and an Adolph Gottlieb Foundation Grant in 2008. He is presently working on the Forgotten California series for an exhibitiion at the Nelson Art Gallery, UC, Davis in Jan. 2012. These paintings translate some of the indigenous place-names remaining in California.

Website: www.peteredlundart.com

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