Patricia Wellington

Visual Artist & Illustrator

I love what I do.  I make art hoping to inspire my audience to see beauty in the simple and the ordinary.  I like to point to fleeting facial expressions or changing light, hoping to draw attention to that which is easily overlooked or in danger of being under-appreciated.  My goal is to engage my viewers and develop the eye of the imagination, prompting the viewer to imagine intangible aspects of my subject, and fill in the proverbial blanks.

Years ago,  I began composing simple watercolor sketches (Girl with Bun, 2013 and Sunny, 2014, Portrait of Mom, 2015, and Mom 2022, and began experimenting with studies of the strong, soulful expressions of our dogs.  I was and still am captivated by the amazing bright light and intense color visible just north of the equator.  Recently, I’ve come to favor acrylic still life, and have begun to reflect on artwork as anthropological artifacts, in that the stories of our lives and how we conduct them make up a record of our having been here.  Compositions feature everyday objects, drawing attention to the role they play in our existence – for example, the large blue eggs and heritage fruit and vegetables that show up continually in my still life arrangements are a nod to my growing interest in food that truly nourishes; my Endangered Animals series (Bluefin Tuna, 2017; Tiger, 2016; and Waterfowl, 2019) expresses my concern for vanishing animal species.  The Lockdown Series was started during early 2020 and expresses a sense of helplessness. 

I have also ventured toward illustration through works like PFR&S (2019) which is capital letters cut out of wood and painted in acrylic.  Each letter has for a background a graphic about running horses.  Colorblock Remy (2019) is a foray into cubism – my cattle dog against a color block background on canvas, looking more like an illustration than what I usually do.  I’ve been working on better hand/eye coordination, and playing more with the placement of the featured objects:  I try out ideas, erase and re-pose a few times, monitor the effect of the light and work on depicting my featured objects at the right time of day for the desired effect.  Isn’t light everything? I’ve created a few pieces on black canvas (Vase and Dove, 2021;  Hamster and Sugar Bowl 2022).  I’ve painted a French Bulldog, a Rottweiler and a Great Pyrennees, but just now I’m more curious about seascapes, skyscapes and still life. 

New for 2023 is the Island Series – so far this includes Turf Moor (2023) and Flying Fish (2023).  I’ve started exploring themes featuring objects that rarely occur together in a single glance – that’s actually been fun.  In the works are more skyscapes like Sunset Over Tyler (2022), a handful of pieces for my Island Series, and a project featuring late-Victorian artifacts.

Patricia Wellington | 2023