Artists Statement:
Fredrick H. Varley say’s it well; “The artists job is to unlock fetters and release spirit, to tear to pieces and recreate so forcefully that…the imagination of the onlooker is awakened and completes within himself the work of art.”
This statement describes Patricia Neden’s approach to creating art. She applies this to the reality of rock, trees, earth and sky; all are de-constructed and transformed to suggest something different, something spiritual and romantic, soul searching, probing, intimate and personal. Nature begins to lose its concrete meaning as it is distorted and abstracted, with the goal being to express the essence of the image, its color, its smell, its movement, its surface, its atmosphere. The resulting work allows the onlooker to cast their own imagination upon the image and they in turn are transformed, moved, transfixed by its impression. Patricia wants her work to bring to the consciousness of the viewer spiritual experiences and impressions from their own past and present. The result the artist desires to have is that the person takes from the work something of the artists perspective melded with their own to arrive at a synthesized experience greater than the individual. For instance the piece “A Minimal Horizon” with its soothing colors, its textured tranquil surface should elicit in the viewer something of the feeling of cool refreshing breezes surrounding the body while the work as a whole refreshes their inner being. Some images are rather minimalist while others are complex and energized with life’s experience such as the triptych “The Turning” with its dramatic surface which depicts fall’s aggressive transition of brilliant color and the movement of leaves as they disengage, and swirl around us in a rich earthly scent.
Patricia’s pure abstract works dwell primarily upon the dynamics of the soul. An example of this is found in “A Turbulent Despair” and its partner “A Peaceful Inversion”. In the former darkness is portrayed as not just residing in a room with no light but as a place of torment, and agitation where peace refuses to abide. However its partner speaks of hope and redemption, renewal, peace and serenity. One image informs the other enhancing the appreciation of the individual pieces. The “Broken Hearted” is another example of human expression of injury to the soul as its life blood oozes out continuously as it receives one overwhelming blow after another, life fades to lifelessness even though one’s heart beats.
Whether the images are painted or printed all of Patricia’s work seeks to utilize either the natural or human world to touch the depths of the on-lookers being allowing them to not just see something but to experience it, an approach reminiscent of the works of Jean Paul Riopelle and Marcelle Ferron.


Represented by Amsterdam Whitney - New York
www.amsterdamwhitneygallery.com
and by

ArtMatch Calgary
www.artmatch.ca