PATRICK BRENNAN
Drifter March 16 – April 15, 2018
Opening Reception: Friday, March 16, 6-8 PM
Essex Flowers is pleased to present Drifter, an installation of paintings by Patrick Brennan. Leaving his studio in September, Brennan began months of nomadic art making, in Bahrain; London; Alfred, NY; Kent, OH and New York City. Painting on easy to transport surfaces such as canvas, wood, foam and paper offered the ability to work anywhere and at anytime. This version of a studio practice created a process that is spontaneous, drawing directly from Brennan’s relationship to his surroundings. This exhibition is a stream-of-conscious recollection of hills, rivers, lakes, mountains, rocks, cemeteries, highways, clouds, the sun and the moon. These subjects become characters that reflect the landscape with a synthetic, dream-like version of itself.
In the almost 100 paintings that make up this exhibition, Brennan alters traditionally perceived ideas around the sublime. The eye is led through a series of choices and materials that appear chaotic yet organized. Through these direct and at times confrontational works, color and form are used to activate the space, creating a complicated relationship between the natural and unnatural. Each of these intimately sized yet vast paintings evokes a striking and strange journey through the world.
I'm dealing with my relationship to my environment in my work. I am never too comfortable in nature, and know to expect the unexpected. This has become a theme in my work. I want my paintings to reveal themselves slowly, with some anxiety, and to be inviting when you’re in a room with them. I want the viewer to imagine what it would be like to live in the picture they are looking at. –Patrick Brennan
Patrick Brennan has shown his work nationally and internationally, at MoMA / PS1, Halsey McKay, Galerie Lelong, Nicole Klagsbrun, Cleopatra’s, Parrish Art Museum, Anthology Film Archives and Edward Thorpe Gallery in New York; Anat Ebgi; Los Angeles; V1 Gallery, Copenhagen; Cooper Cole, Toronto; Albada Jelgersma, Amsterdam; Hiener Contemporary, DC; and Romer Young, San Francisco. His work has been reviewed and published in The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Hyperalergic, Modern Painters Daily and The Brooklyn Rail. In 2015 Brennan was awarded a NYFA Fellowship in Painting. He is represented by Halsey McKay in New York and Romer Young in San Francisco.
