Project Description
Patrick Walsh
Statement:
Currently, my work consists primarily of acrylic paint on canvas. I use color and gesture to encompass human emotion and socio-economic themes. My work is sporadic and aggressive, using a vast range techniques and mediums to help me convey these topics. Collecting ideas from history as well as current events, my paintings can be seen as abstract cultural representations that tell a story reflecting the human condition. Aside from these concrete themes and ideas, I rely heavily on the unexpected and subconscious mind as well as personal experiences to lead my hand through these conceptual eruptions of vivid color. The viewer can find dark imagery and subject matter that is illustrated with a vigor and intensity of pigment that an overarching feeling of hope is unavoidable.
Figures:
I create these figures as a representation of the feelings and emotions we hide from the world and people around us. Jealousy, Sadness, Hatred, Love, Lust etc. What people tend to stray from showing for fear of judgement. I use aggressive mark making and line work to convey these feelings and emotions in order to bring them to the surface of the canvas to confront the viewer. Thus, creating a connection between the viewer and subject. We can empathize with the figures.
Past Work
Bio:
I grew up in the south shore of Massachusetts and was introduced to the world of art at a very young age. As early as I can remember, I was putting pencil to paper. My grandfather was a painter/graphic designer before the age of computers and I fell in love with his ability to draw and create anything. He’d sew me costumes and I’d run down my grandparents hallway in South Boston dressed as superman. I was mesmerized. My mother was always giving me a sketchpad and pencils or markers at every family gathering and was endlessly drawing figures, cars, houses or anything that attracted my attention. I took some art lessons at the community center around the first grade and loved the opportunity to grow creatively. When I reached the third grade, my teacher took an interest in my drawing and creativity and took the time to print out a multitude of exercises and illustrative practices (How to draw the human body in different positions as well as perspective and scale) I continued with my love for art through High School and studied every art class offered. Knowing a life without art wasn’t a life worth living, I eventually found myself studying Drawing, Painting and Printmaking at Plymouth State University. I started as a drawing major, switched to a printmaking major and finally found my love for painting and ended college with a BA in painting. Today, I practice as an abstract artist working in Maine. I live in Portland with a studio in the Biddeford textile mills.