Jeremiah Gardner Patterson

Observations and Reflections

Tuesday, November 6–December 6, 2012

Artist Statement

In addition to my admiration of Italian Renaissance Art, I also love the Dutch and Flemish masters,
and I make every effort to capture a like richness of form, texture, and color in my own paintings. I
strive to paint deeply into the forms in my work and into the spaces around them, working layers of
color up towards a textural surface from within the area’s inner structure, successively trying to
pull everything out of each form that I see. In both watercolor and egg tempera, I love the indirect
process involved in painting, working one color over another to add richness, complexity, and
luminosity to the whole work.

My primary compositional concern is to have the arrangement feel natural, as if the viewer just
happened upon everything that is there, and all remains well within the realm of our normal life’s
possibilities. In addressing this concern, I arrange my settings to feel comfortable that the
positions, poses and subjects seem natural, possible, and realistic. In this way, I also avoid overt
fantasy and work hard to find the fine point between idealizing a form and the gritty realization of
its minute details. In choice of subject, I make subtle reference to certain themes I find in Italian
Renaissance or Flemish paintings, working to create compositions, which may touch on these
timeless themes, but do so by revealing them in a contemporary, modern, and realistic way. My
compositions have explored allegorical themes such as “The Four Seasons”, narrative themes such
as “The Visitation & Annunciation”, as well as what I call my, “Kitchen Still Life Compositions”
in which the combination of objects are the ingredients in a favorite recipe. I hope that the themes
within my work remain subtle in their presentation, playing a small part in an image that highlights
a beautiful moment in time during our 21st century life.

Snap Dragons & Pears watercolor	Visitate watercolor