NEWS  April, 2010

 This is the page for updates on recent shows and future planned events

2010: As well as working for several shows, I am working on a book about intuition, based on my PhD thesis - a fun and intense challenge.  

2009: October:  My book 'Bars and Windows - diary of a poet/painter' is now published and available at Barnes and Noble, and Amazon. It is also available as both hard and softback at the publishers: www.xlibris.com. It is a collection of paintings and poetry from the 1990's, arranged in 7 chapters, speaking to a journey from despair to joy in terms of metaphor.  The two languages complement one another, but no poem describes a specific painting, and nor does any painting illustrate a particular poem.  Each page is a different format and combination of paintings and/or poems.  I am not a poet, but these poems happened while I was having a painter's block in the 1990's, and so were very welcome at the time. They scratch beneath the surface of my life....and probably others' lives.

2008: moved from England to the U.S. in April.  We have our primary residence in Arizona, and a unit in a live/work condo in  Massachusetts.

2007:

I spent 10 days in New Bedford in September, participating in a city-wide Open Studio event one weekend. The overlapping solo shows in London, early in  2007, have been great learning experiences, as well as a good chance to see the work 'on the wall'.  Beatrice Philpotts has written a perceptive review of the the  solo show at the University of Surrey in Guildford, the Lewis Elton Gallery,  which can be seen below.

Publications:     
The big triptych painting owned by the University of Surrey is included in the latest volume being published by the Public Catalogue Foundation ("Surrey").  This is a series of volumes aiming to include all paintings owned by public organizations in the U.K.  Their website is included on my 'Links' page.  The painting included is 'Broken Dream' , which can be seen on my gallery page in the 'early work' section.

Press coverage: 
- Beatrice Philpotts in the newspaper 'The Surrey Advertiser' (see below).
- The Molesey Messenger, for the April 2006 show with Jo Buonaguidi at the Fountain Gallery.

                              
Beatrice Phillpotts in 'The Surrey Advertiser' (9 February, 2007):
The importance of personal space takes on a whole new meaning in a thought-provoking exhibition by Pat Paxson.
On show until Thursday, March 1, at the University of Surrey's Lewis Elton Gallery in Guildford are more than 20 semi-abstract paintings and drawings that explore the different ways groups of figures relate to one another through body language.
After graduating from Wimbledon School of Art with an MA in Drawing as fine art, Paxson gained a Ph.D. in visual art from Goldsmiths College for her thesis on the interaction of perception and unconscious processes.
She has combined the discipline of drawing the human figure and her studies of the human psyche to compelling effect in a series of vigorously tackled paintings that manage to communicate key relationships between couples and groups of people in a few well-chosen linear brushstrokes.
"I have a long-standing fascination with painting figures in terms of energy - as seen in the energy of mark-making and colour and their interaction," she said.
Paxson's figures are generally no more than loosely defined 'faces' balanced on vigorous dashes, angles, and planes that suggest bodies adopting specific attitudes to each other.
The way in which a figure moves and the way in which their personal space opens or closes are the central focus of each composition, and the palpable visual tension is heightened by the brilliant matt backdrops that help to strike contrasting moods of togetherness or separation.
The compositions are also a graphic illustration of our own eagerness to 'humanise' what we see and to read different storylines into the dynamic minimalist marks that ' individualise' each figure.
Ideas of keeping yourself to yourself are vividly conveyed in Paxson's large lime green canvas Different Directions, in which two figures pass close by but are clearly separated by an infinite emotional divide.

'The Molesey Messenger: 
'Two West London artists, Jo Buonaguidi and Pat Paxson, are presenting their distinctive work on both paper and canvas. Each of these artists bases their work on a combination of drawn lines and vivid use of colour. This exhibition is about lines. Striking lines, happy lines, dancing lines and crazy scribbles. The way these lines evolve into emotional drawings gives the show its character. Visit this exhibition. There is a feel-good factor, you will leave the gallery with an inner smile! 
Each artist has her own individual way of working, each complementing the other, resulting in a visually exciting and satisfying exhibition..... Pat Paxson did an M.A. degree in Drawing. She experiments with drawing and the energy of mark making, in conjunction with a vibrant use of colour. Her paintings and drawings include abstract and figurative elements; her images of abstracted human figures are ambiguous yet intriguing.