Artist Andy Peluso would never call himself an artist.
But when you point to his work and his life as proof to remind him that he is, in fact, an artist, he tends to sheepishly, wordlessly concede.
At 67 years old, the New Jersey-born lifelong horse trainer has “retired” into full-time artistry from his home in upstate New York. In 1980, after a decade of on-the-road horse racing circuits, he took a stationary trainer job and relocated there to raise his children, moving into a modest home on idyllic, privately owned farmland. Residential development companies have since built out the surrounding acreage, with his lot having been written into the contracts for sales of the property three times over.
Most recently, with a new home being erected on the gated community he’s circumstantially – and comparatively, modestly – a part of, Andy has found both inspiration and obsession in the dumpsters of excess construction materials on the build site.
Andy’s art practice exists squarely within the outsider art movement. His work reminiscences of Hawkins Bolden’s found-medium assemblages, or Richard Shaw’s porcelain renditions of the mundane, complete with the whimsy of a street-art caricaturist. The sculptures he creates are assertions on culture – equally as substantial in form as they are in concept – and are heavily influenced by history, Western pop culture and, perhaps most prominently, music.
Alongside creating art and working with world-renowned race horses, Andy has also been a life-long “sofa” music-maker himself, particularly songwriter and guitarist. Add that to the list of his other professional and/or recreational pursuits over the years: industrial designer, vintage furniture and one-of-a-kind “junk” dealer, USPS mailperson, manure scooper, illustrator, forager, farmhand, property manager and – most proudly – father.
He keeps a notebook bedside, each night falling asleep as he jots out his musings. He will continue to do so, turning thoughts into art (which he will not call it) until he runs out of ideas, stuff, or fumes – whichever’s first.
Artwork photography and artist portrait by Kelly Marshall
Art writing by Emily R. Pellerin
Website by Colin McDonald
