Ava L. Peterson is an interdisciplinary artist investigating the fragile line between opulence and disintegration. Through the lens of painting, Peterson re-examines imagery sourced from contemporary interior design magazines, allowing these idealized scenes to seep, bleed, and drift apart until ornament dissolves into abstraction. While magazine imagery enforces class signifiers, offering a superficial sense of proximity to wealth, by abstracting them, Peterson exposes their function as tools of desire circulated to the public during an era of extreme class disparity. Her work ultimately asks whether the dying entity revealed beneath the ornamental surface is, in fact, the American Dream.

Peterson (b. 2002, OH) received a BFA in Studio Art from Denison University (‘24) and is an MFA candidate in Painting & Drawing at SAIC (‘26). Notable exhibitions include House & Garden (SAIC INCUBATOR), In a Child’s Place (Purple Window Gallery), and Housewarming (Elise Seigenthaler Gallery).