LAURIE PEEK
With experience in the visual arts as an archivist, educator, documentarian and fine artist, for over a decade Laurie Peek has been focused on creating and sharing her art full-time. Recovering from a personal tragedy, she has most recently been using her photography to explore the meaning of love and loss, grief and healing.
Peek grew up on the Gulf coast of Florida, where she spent most of her childhood playing outside in the lush Florida landscape and in its waters, giving her a long-time fascination with flora and water. Attending high school in Charleston, SC, she soaked up the unique atmosphere and culture of that historic city.
A photography residency at Apeiron Workshop in Millerton, NY was her first extensive encounter with some of the masters of photography like Emmet Gowin, Paul Caponigro and Danny Lyon. It cemented her decision to continue her education in photography. She obtained her Masters of Fine Arts in Photography in 1978 at the Visual Studies Workshop / SUNY Buffalo studying with Nathan Lyons, Syl Labrot, Todd Walker, and Hollis Frampton. Working part-time at the George Eastman House Museum of Photography, she immersed herself in the GEH photo archives and exhibitions. After teaching photography for two years in D.C., she moved to NYC and became a photo librarian for The Bettmann Archive (now part of Getty Images) and then Sygma Photo News.
Having a first-hand look at news coverage while working at Sygma and wanting to use her photography skills “to make a difference,” Peek became a journalist, photojournalist and PR photographer. Capturing the labor-union handshake that ended the 1980 transit strike was her first big break when the Soho Photo News reporter asked to use her photo for the cover. She went on to freelance for numerous publications including The Village Voice, City Limits, and The Progressive, and she became a staff photographer for The Brooklyn Paper, covering politics, housing, the women’s and anti-nuke movements, and more. As staff photographer for NYC’s Dept. of General Services, she roamed the city documenting its community gardens, housing, and Mayor Ed Koch.
Moving to Rockland County, a suburb of NYC, Peek put aside her photography to raise a family and pursue a second career selling creative services to corporations for creative production companies. She fully re-engaged with the art world a decade ago when she became Director of Administration and Gallery Manager for The Art Students League’s Vytlacil campus in Sparkill, NY, assisting with their residency program, promotion, and gallery exhibitions.
In recent years, Laurie Peek has been exhibiting her photography widely across the US and internationally. Solo shows include: Flowers Everywhere, Davis-Orton Gallery, Hudson, NY; Car Parts: Metallic Transports, Union Arts Center, Sparkill, NY; and Rockland Reverso, Rockland Center for the Arts, W. Nyack, NY.
She has participated in numerous group shows at: A. Smith Gallery, ArtSuiteNY Gallery, Bau Gallery, Berlin Blue Gallery, Blue Door Art Center, Blue Hill Art & Cultural Center, Carriage Barn Arts Center, Center for Photography, C4FPA, Center for Photography at Woodstock, Dallas Center for Photography, Five Points Arts, Foley Gallery, FotoNostrum Gallery, Gallery 66, Garner Arts Center, Garrison Art Center, Griffin Museum of Photography, Hopper House Museum, LACP, LA Photo Curator, Lagstein Gallery, Lockwood Museum, PhotoPlace Gallery, Pomona Arts Center, Praxis Gallery, Ridgefield Guild of Artists, Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts, Robert Anderson Gallery, Rockland Center for the Arts, Rowayton Arts Center, SE Center for Photography, Soho Photo Gallery, Union Arts Center, Upstream Gallery, Van Der Plas Gallery.
In 2023 Peek has been selected as a Finalist in Photolucida’s Critical Mass competition. In 2022 Peek was awarded “International Garden Photographer of the Year, 3rd Place Abstract Views,” Kew Gardens, London, UK, and for the last seven years she has been juried into the Julia Margaret Cameron Awards for Women Photographers competition c/o the FotoNostrum Gallery in Barcelona, Spain.
Her work has been published and reviewed in print and online at, among others: Fraction Magazine 12.13.22, A Photo Editor 4-2022, Lenscratch 3-2-2022, The Photo Review 2019 Competition issue, and Fraction Magazine 10th Anniversary issue, 2018.
Peek currently resides with her husband in the Hudson Valley, where, in addition to her photography, she tends to her garden, swims in her pool, practices East Asian brush painting, and supports local environmental and civic causes.
