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Daisy Patton exhibit explores ties that bind at K Contemporary in Denver
Posted by sgates123 on December 22, 2022 in Cherry Hills Village, Denver, Denver Business, Englewood, Featured, Greenwood Village | 33 Views | Leave a response
Growing up, Daisy Patton thought she was going to be a history professor — a detective of sorts who would piece together fragmented stories. She likes to know things, but it's the fact of her life to not know, to live with uncertainty and fight erasure.
So, she became an artist; a painter.
Married now to a Venezuelan husband and settled in South Hadley, Massachusetts, Patton didn't always have such stability. Her mother was from Arkansas and moved her daughter frequently between California (Patton was born in Los Angeles) and Oklahoma.
Patton's father was from Iran.
She's never met him.
"I don't know his name. I don't have a photograph. I wish I at least had that," she said.
Her current exhibition, Like Two Drops of Water/Like Oil and Vinegar, is currently on display at K Contemporary and is her first show dealing exclusively with family portraiture.
"I'm not the only person to have a fractured family," she said. "The family as a nuclear unit is not the reality for a lot of people. In this show of family portraits, I want to make space for all the ways a family presents itself."
Photo courtesy of K Contemporary
For this show, Patton selected images from her collection of over 5,000 photographs and paints on top of them to create new narratives and ultimately a living archive of memories misplaced.
"I'm really interested in who we remember and why. To me, remembering is a radical, political act and one of love," she said. "I collect photos from all over the world — from online vendors, thrift stores and antique shops. For me, the collection process is a falling in love process."
Patton prints her chosen photos (including all rips or tears or scratches) and adheres them to panels before oil painting over them. The idea is that by defacing a once-sacred object, she is able to shock it back into the present and into importance.
"Painting over a forgotten family photograph is an act of love, not violence," she insists.
The people in the photographs are long gone, but Patton's work is able to collapse space and time and create a portal of connection.
Thus, memories are reborn, repurposed.
"To carry on someone in living memory is one of the greatest acts of love one can do; remembering is a radical act of reaffirmation that their lives mattered, just as ours do now," Patton wrote in her artist statement.
The faces of her subjects are certainly visible, but somehow, they are not important. Patton's expert use of color theory (think mustard yellow and aqua; pink and purple) allows viewers to project their own identities and family narratives into the space.
"Her colors are a compositional element," Doug Kacena, owner of K Contemporary, said. "They keep your eye moving and lead you through the painting forcing your eye to go certain places."
Patton elaborates: "I don't use color as direct symbolism. Instead, I think of color in terms of color scheme and invoking mood. Before I begin a painting, I do a color mock-up, and there will be a color that comes forward for the photograph I'm looking at. It's a very instinctual thing."
Family — both ideological and real — is often layered with so much nuance and delicacy, but Patton's paintings are nothing short of joyful. She allows the viewer space for personal interpretation, and her incredible use of color and patterning leaves one hopeful and elevated — regardless of personal family particulars.
Photo courtesy of Jordan Spencer
Her images are littered with patterns of flowers and vines.
"The flowers are used to present the relationships within the image," Kacena explained. "They show the ties that bind within the photo."
Patton uses floral motifs with such delicate craft that the viewer is unsure if the botanicals are exploring or hiding family complexities.
"Patterning is another element in my tool kit of defacement. It's both beautification, connectivity and underscoring relationships with people in the painting," Patton said. "Sometimes I use them to fix some vernacular or rebalance the composition. In art history, flowers are a representation of mortality and of our fleeting lives. But in my paintings, the flowers are always alive. It's a breakage of time."
While the timing of this show (around the holidays, which are always drenched in family intricacies) is purely coincidental, it serves as a purifying mirror from which we can draw comfort and redefine our own relationship with loved ones.
Patton ends with an anecdote:
"I was at an Agnes Martin show in L.A., and I was the only person there. Between the space and the quiet, the paintings unveiled themselves, and you could hear the whispers. I hope when people go to my show they can hear the whispers."
Listen closely.
Posted in Cherry Hills Village, Denver, Denver Business, Englewood, Featured, Greenwood Village | Tagged Agnes Martin, Art, Daisy Patton, Doug Kacena, family, Iran, K Contemporary
sgates123
Stephanie has a master's degree in journalism and works as a freelance writer focusing art, culture and fashion. She also owns and operates a private equestrian center and competes across the US.