Gay Patterson

Chiaroscuro is happy to present new paintings from Gay Patterson, who has shown with the Gebert family of galleries for years. We just received these pieces which are currently hanging in the gallery.

Artist Statement:
What can I say - shift happens. Even if I start a painting with an idea in mind, I try to put it on idle and let it evolve by discovery rather than any pre-conceived narrative. Over decades, I do seem to have embedded notions of ephemerality, motion and the constant of change in my work. I’m not sure if I’m trying to understand mutability, nail it down or accept it, but it is a primal state of life and so very beautiful.

What you see, feel and think depends on just how you approach everything, including art. In looking at a painting, no part exists in isolation but alters in relationship to what’s next to it, where it is viewed from, what the quality of light is and every experience you bring along. Recently I’ve been using reflective mica powder and interference pigments on a black ground to create a dynamic space where what you see shifts as you change your viewing angle so that there isn’t one fixed reality. Rather than taking a quick glance and thinking you’ve got it, giving another look from a different perspective can expand depth, richness of meaning and effect. One of the best things art can do is open you up to curiosity and suspension of judgement, and make you take another, deeper look at the world around you.

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