photo by Jim Johnson
I make primarily figurative work- people and portraits- but I am concerned with how we live and what future we are living into. Bringing people’s attention to the urgent issues of the climate crisis, pollution, and transformation of our Business as Usual culture to a sustainable society is one of the most important tasks for artists today.
New Croton Dam, oil on Stonehenge paper
Autumn Sun on Ashokan Reservoir, oil on Stonehenge paper
Silver Light, Hudson River at Croton Landing, oil on linen
In the last ten years, I have increasingly made plein air practice and landscape an integral part of my creative process. Every August, I engage a model to work with a group of about 8 professional artists for three days of outdoor painting sessions.
Pandora, oil on linen
Terce/ Mountain, watercolor and ink on paper
I have also done two residencies with The Montello Foundation, a foundation committed to the preservation of ecology and supporting the artist’s role in interpreting that subject and bringing the fragility of the earth to the public. In my studio narratives, themes of climate change, environmental fragility, and destruction play an important role as a condition of my narrative world.
Patricia Watwood bio
www.patriciawatwood.com
Patricia Watwood is an oil painter, draftsman, teacher and author. Her subjects are primarily portraits, women and figures, incorporating myth and narrative. Her book on drawing, creative practice and mindfulness, The Path of Drawing, was published by Monacelli Studio Press in 2022. She has been exhibited at the Beijing World Art Museum, The European Museum of Modern Art (MEAM), The Butler Museum, and is in the collections of The St. Louis University Museum of Art, and The New Britain Museum of American Art. Her commissioned portraits hang in institutions such as St. Louis City Hall, The Rhode Island State Capital, Washington University, Kennedy School of Government, and at The Harvard Art Museums. Watwood earned her MFA with honors from New York Academy of Art, and studied with Jacob Collins as a founding member of the Water Street Atelier (now Grand Central Atelier).