16 Artists&Illustrators
Emily Patrick
For artists like Emily Patrick, the canvas appears to be less
a place for defining statements and more a visual diary.
Her paintings celebrate the joy and the poignancy of a
poetic life lived to the fullest. And like all truly great
painters, she creates images that seem bright and
effortless, when the reality is perhaps far from that.
Emily’s latest solo exhibition, A Collection of Paintings
2017-2019, is her first in three years and acts as a marker
of what has happened in her life during that time. We join
her at the beach, the breakfast table, and around the
Christmas tree. There is spring blossom, winter snow and
even – in a surreal twist – a blue sky indoors.
Her past life features too. The reverence with which
she paints vases and china cups was no doubt instilled
in her while working in her father’s antique shop while
the abundance of flowers and blossoming trees feels like
a relic of a childhood on the farm where the woods and
fields were her “first art teachers”.
Recent holidays to Japan and the Caribbean also
presented new challenges and ways of seeing. “My soul
abides in England’s soft green mist, so that the islands of
Saint Vincent and Bequia felt like a kaleidoscope of light
and colour, everything within me woken and shaken,”
Emily writes in the catalogue. Rainbow over Wallilabou
captures that sense of wonder perfectly. “In every
direction the views were truly outstanding,” she tells us
today. “The heavy tropical verdancy was totally new to me.
I would love to have painted through binoculars because
the side of the volcano is a patchwork of allotments,
approached up near-vertical footpaths.”
Her chosen materials were born of necessity: birch-ply
panels cut to fit a suitcase; egg tempera chosen because
“you can get an egg wherever you are in the world”. Extra
layers of watercolour were added at home, “remembering
the heavy scent of the ylang-ylang tree”.
A Collection of Paintings 2017-2019 will be Emily’s 15th
solo exhibition and the experience is no less frightening as
time passes. “I think I am no wiser,” she says. “The only
way to stop the panic and fear around exhibition time is to
advance with careful steps. There are so many different
jobs that we have to do. One gathers speed.”
A Collection of Paintings 2017-2019 runs from 21 April to
7 May at 8 Duke Street, London SW1. http://www.emilypatrick.comFresh
Paint
Inspiring new artworks, straight off the easel