ref: cYs Sep 20-Oct 2 2010 THE AIR GALLERY Emily Patrick - Open a 'pdf' of this press release - return to Galleries PR Index

PRESS RELEASE

EMILY PATRICK

THREE YEARS’ PAINTING

20 September – 2 October

CONTACT AND IMAGES

Michael Perry

Telephone: +44 20 8858 0427

Mobile: +44 7785 307113

Email: enquiries@emilypatrick.com

Website: www.emilypatrick.com

11 AUGUST 2010

Emily Patrick, the Greenwich-based artist has quietly built a large and ardent fan base

while remaining true to the principles of landscape painting, portraiture and still-life. Born

in 1959, she studied architecture at Cambridge before becoming a painter. This will be her

eleventh solo exhibition. Her two most recent shows were cited as “Critics Choice” in the

Financial Times and among the “Top 5 Galleries / Best of the Arts” in The Times. Her work

has been described as “latter-day Impressionist.”

One Legged

www.emilypatrick.com

1

“this distinctive figurative painter, a 21st-century intimiste … combines intense

technical accomplishment … with a vibrant expressiveness and an airy feel for

light and colour. Most compelling is the sense of interiority, half melancholy,

half rapturous, in the still lifes of flowers, set against mirrors or dark furniture

and the sense of nature condensed yet uncontrollable, bursting to the pictures

edges, in the landscape close-ups.”

Jackie Wullschlager, Financial Times

Shadows on a Slate

Her work quietly demands attention through its decisive quality, charm and unusual

sincerity. The subjects are traditional but the treatment of them is experimental, painterly,

sometimes abstracted and always full of vivid appeal.

Patricks paintings have a calm and humane subject matter and a style that appeals to

many. Easily recognisable, they also provoke thought, curiosity and admiration, and are

sought after with zeal by her many collectors in Britain and the United States.

She lives in Greenwich, beside the Royal Park, which she often paints. Her early Georgian

house, a bohemian time warp full of curiosities and antiques, also features. She works

closely with her husband Michael Perry. Together they manage her exhibitions and design

the frame for each painting, which together they make, colour and sometimes gild.

Patricks work sells for between £2,000 and £30,000. Concerned that her work was not

financially available to all those who enjoyed it, Michael has now set up a successful private

printing press, selling prints for between £100 and £400.

Emily Patrick has featured in a number of newspapers and magazines, including The

Sunday Telegraph, the Saturday Times, The Evening Standard and Vogue. She is an

articulate, engaging champion of figurative art.

She is available for interview.

www.emilypatrick.com

2

ON THE REVIVAL OF THE ENGLISH LOVE OF LANDSCAPE PAINTING

Wastelanders

Peoples attitude to countryside is changing. We all sense how threatened it is. Most

people know of a mud path that is now lost under tarmac. We see its disappearance under

housing, industrial estates, tourism and transport links. Perhaps this explains why people

have begun to share my pleasure in landscape. In 2005, I had painted a picture of a patch

of woodland ground – mud, decaying leaves and a few green shoots. It was everybodys

favourite picture in the show of that year.

I think this change is also reflected in two recent countryside commissions. Rather than

www.emilypatrick.com

3

being asked to paint a portrait or the house, I was given freedom to choose any aspect of

the landscape that I chose. The paintings from last years expedition to Settrington, North

Yorkshire, will be included at the exhibition in September.

Many of the landscapes in this show are painted from an unusually low eye-level, so that

you are immersed, and see both the far stretch of the land, and its constituent elements,

up-close before you. As children we most acutely relate to nature, and I hope that the

viewpoints found in my landscapes can give back this sensation to their viewers.

ON AN UNTIDY HOUSE

Sky over Laundry

Traditionally, artists are expected to hide themselves away in their studios, I think that this

is a mistake. An artist and their family profit from living beside one another. A studio is an

inward-looking empty space waiting for the artist to bring it alive, whereas the clutter of a

home is an infinitely rich source of subject matter. As a wife and mother, my intention is to

make my family and others aware of the romance of everyday life, be it laundry drying, an

unfinished breakfast table or the ingredients for supper.

www.emilypatrick.com

4

ON THE PAINTING OF GARDENS

Up into an Apple Tree

Gardens seem an obvious subject for an artist, yet they have troubled me. The patterns and

punches of colour are a completed work of art. There is no need for an artist to explain or

point them out. It feels a bit like painting a picture of a sculpture – a photographer can do a

better job.

However, today, much of my painting is done in gardens. I dont look at flower heads

so much as their stalks, nor at a tree so much as into it. The point at which the plant

disappears into the soil is the most exciting, an area of great mystery. I love the dark

shadows in under the plants. These throw up and show off the shapes of the leaves.

Flowers are the final trumpet call. Everything else comes first.

NOTES TO THE EDITOR

The 64-page catalogue can be viewed at http://www.emilypatrick.com

Gallery

Exhibition

32 Dover Street

20 September – 2 October 2010

London W1S 4NF

Monday – Saturday 10:00am – 6:00pm

+44 20 7409 1544 (during exhibition)

(Thursday and Friday until 8:00pm)

www.emilypatrick.com

5

 TOP