Waiting for Flowers Oil on Panel 10" x 12 1/2" Carolyn Patterson
Carolyn Patterson holds a BFA degree in painting from the University of Hartford Art School, Hartford, CT, and graduated Magna cum Laude. She also studied art at Stephens College in Columbia, MO and the SMU Academy of Visual Communications in Dallas, TX. She has participated in, and taught workshops in Canada and Italy. Her work has been included in many group shows including the Albuquerque Museum, the Warwick Museum in RI, the Wisteriahurst Museum in MA, Mary Washington College Galleries in VA, Kendall Campus Art Gallery, Miami-Dade Community College, Miami, FL, Anna Maria College in MA, The London Regional Art Museum in Ontario, Canada and the Cork Gallery at Lincoln Center in NYC, just to name a few. Her work has won several awards including the Award of Excellence, Variations: Salute to Women in the Arts, Lincoln Center, NYC. Her work is included in many private collections throughout the United States and Canada.
Carolyn’s recent paintings – intimate interiors, are typical of the quiet poetry expressed in her work. Many of her paintings are done in the classical egg tempera method. Egg yolk and powdered pigments are used to build layers of semi-transparent colors and tones. The egg tempera method demands a drawing into painting discipline. A touch that is both decisive and at the same time sensitive, is an essential element in egg tempera painting. Even though her works are small in size, they are monumental in composition. They are both ephemeral and real, full of light and color.
The following is a quote from a recent review of her work in the January, 2004 issue of Art New England, Spotlight Review, on page 21:
“Like Giovanni Bellini, Patterson integrates oil glazing into her paintings, achieving vibrant shimmering colors and emphasizing the minute detail of everyday objects. She also conveys a playful sense of humor. In her Blue and White series, the shells are replaced by other ordinary objects, including an urn – a nod perhaps, to classical art and its role in the Renaissance – and, in a contemporary twist, a ceramic pig (that may or may not be a piggy bank).” _ _ _By Doug Norris.
“As a Contemporary Realist painter, I am committed to the depiction of nature with both scrutiny and poetry. All the elements needed to describe form – a highlight here, a cast shadow there – are a source of delight. The painting process itself is a source of joy. If the process is pure and honest, then the end result will be well worth the effort.”