“In Patterson’s work, modular, layered colors and gestures are indicative of experiences of space and time. The gesture is measured in dialogue with geometry. She balances, or rather collides, indications of rigor and abandon, such as measured segments sometimes painted and sometimes inherently colored, which subdivide almost entropically, as well as the lavishly applied strokes, whose energy reveals on closer inspection a practiced and internalized prowess with the subtlest variations of her tools and materials. These dichotomies collapse and blend, as known categories withhold their pseudo-intellectual comfort and the viewer is left to experience, rather than evaluate.”

— Vittori Colaizzi, Professor of Art History & author of Robert Ryman: critical texts

For twenty years, Patterson has created geometric objects that embody a poetic, physical translation of place.

Early in her career, Patterson combined abstraction with observation using forms found in vernacular architecture such as billboards, signs, and barns as source material. Through a slow process of mining a site for information, she remembers specific places by measuring distance and observing light by drawing, filming, and photographing. By 2010, her method of constructing paintings, layering paint on canvas, stacking wood and paper, became primary to her creative process. She maintains her practice, often incorporating memories of observed landscapes into her constructions and isolating color events or single gestural marks.

Her work has been exhibited widely across the country with solo shows in Philadelphia, New York, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, Florida, and Minnesota.

Artist Statement

Exhibitions

“I responded to Patterson’s approach to painting: numerous discrete canvases that appear to be built into one… I also liked those broad bands of color asserting themselves over the whisper of unprimed or lightly stained canvas.”

— Joanne Mattera, Joanne Mattera Art Blog, 2009