Spotlight on Artist, Peter Agardy:
When Mom is an artist, Dad loves to fish, and you grow up in South Florida, it is understandable that someone like Peter Agardy would grow up inspired to pursue the things he loves—fishing and creating art. Family photo albums show snapshots of Peter when many of the fish he caught were bigger than he was as a child. Today he describes himself as a “major fisherman,” especially fly and live bait fishing. Drawing and painting were equally important to Peter, whether it be painting a surfboard, or spray painting marine life graffiti. His natural progression was earning a fine arts degree in graphic design from Florida Atlantic University in 2008. But the creativity available with paint superseded the computer, and the graphic arts major chose paint and canvas as his medium.
There are multitudes of marine artists—the work of Stanley Meltzoff and Don Ray—being 
two whose work impacted Agardy with their photo realistic images of fish that appear frozen in time; and from this influence Agardy’s work typically incorporates the elements of a scene of underwater movement, fish in action, and water penetrated by light. Although anatomically correct, the marine species in Agardy’s paintings have a freedom of rendering, which is created by both spray paint and brush. This is apparent in Peter Agardy’s Yellow Fever, selected as the Grand Prize cover contest winner for Florida Sport Fishing magazine, where light from the surface above highlights a school of yellow fin tuna leaving a trail of bubbles as they move through water in search of prey.
Agardy’s work often extends beyond canvas, where he is able to put the graffiti artist within to work in the form of a mural that he created for the Boynton Beach city boat ramp, via the Art in Public Places program. Looking back to olden days when sport fishermen greedily boated as many game fish as possible, Agardy’s work begins with sepia tones of paint, gradating into the today’s colorful world of catch and release, culminating in a large sailfish sporting release flags. Another of Agardy’s colorful murals can be seen around the perimeter of the courts at the Delray Beach Tennis Center.
It was at the opening of a West Palm Beach gallery showing of Agardy’s work in 2010, that Bill Burbank of Incite Brands found an artist to enhance his line of sportswear under the Shore Thing Coastal Lifestyle Apparel label. Peter was commissioned to design several marine themes for a line of high quality tee shirts called the Peter Agardy Signature Series. This collection is currently being sold online at www.aShoreThing.com, all Florida locations of The Sports Authority, high volume locations such as Hibbett Sports, Divers Direct, Captain Harry’s, and other top fishing and diving retailers. With Incite Brands recent expansion into Made in the USA Activewear manufacturing and dye sublimation printing there are also many new opportunities for Peter’s artwork to be used on new Shore Thing Collections or on other Fishing and Diving brands.
What does Peter Agardy see in the future? As a lover of all things marine, fishing and art, he sees a genre of art to be known and respected as game fish art, including all of the artists, past, present, and future, who produce tee shirts, murals, photos, sculpture and paintings of our incredible marine environment.
Peter Agardy’s work can be seen at www.peteragardyfineart.com, and he may be contacted at info@PeterAgardyFineArt.com. More information on Incite Brand’s new manufacturing capabilities or its Shore Thing Coastal Lifestyle Apparel brand may be found at www.InciteBrands.com.
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