.jpg)
My drawings begin with images drawn from contemporary life—crowds, performers, public figures, press mobs, and the theatricalized spaces where culture displays its anxieties. I’m interested in how humor, exaggeration, and caricature can reveal something psychologically true, and how a dense, overloaded composition can echo the overstimulation of modern experience. Through improvisation, distortion, and reassembly, the work becomes a way of thinking on paper: a search for meaning in our noisy, crowded culture.
Pete Sparber is a Philadelphia-based artist whose drawing practice examines the psychological density of contemporary culture through complex, improvisational compositions. He holds an MFA from Cornell University and returned to full-time studio work after a long global career in corporate leadership, including six years in Shanghai and Tokyo. A contributing writer for Artblog, Sparber has published numerous interviews and reviews that reflect the same observational acuity found in his drawings. He has recently begun exhibiting his work in and around Philadelphia.
‘The Cost of Sleep,’ Elizabeth Johnson’s swirling dreamscapes defy narration
Da Vinci Art Alliance at 93, connected to community, retooling and reaching out
Gifts that keep giving, small works at The Plastic Club, Sketch Club, Vox Populi and Gross McCleaf
The Dark Light in Joe Boruchow’s ‘Monster Storm’ at Space 1026
Branche Coverdale, urban observer, at Paradigm Gallery – “Everything starts in my sketchbooks”
O’Neil Scott, from comics to football to old-masterly paintings of the Black community today
‘Black like that,’ interview with Curator Jova Lynne
1980
Cornell University, MFA
2012
Highwire Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2011
Highwire Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2005
One Person Show, Fishaus, Wichita, KS
One Person Show, Wichita Center for the Arts, Wichita, KS
2025
Make-it-Pop!, InLiquid Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Huddle, Vox Populi, Philadelphia, PA
2024
Voice of the People, InLiquid Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Exhibited American Elegy series, a 5 drawing set exploring the contemporary American political scene
2024
New Now VII, InLiquid Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
New Member Exhibition
InLiquid Toasts 25, Off the Wall Gallery at Dirty Franks, Philadelphia, PA
2023
Work Featured in Summer 2023 Edition of Philadelphia Stories
2012 and 2013
Cover Art for Business Directory and Neighborhood Resource Guide (NE Philadelphia)
2012
Peter Sparber: A second spark in an artistic career Feature Article in 'Metro', Philadelphia Inquirer
