Buffalo Rising Article
By Amanda McLaughlin:
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| "GLF" Watercolor on Paper |
A controlled frenzy, a tangential immediacy: Patrick's Willett's new exhibition, Transience, features works preoccupied with the happening past and the happening present. Opening Wednesday, March 28th, at the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society,Transience is a selection of the internationally known artist's studies of the "unique and powerful" (to paraphrase Willett) Western New York landscape. More than simply reworkings of Western New York's industrial years, Willett's paintings activate Buffalo's past; the antique is reclaimed, put into motion, worked on by nature.
Described by the artist as a "visual meditation on space, transience, and the permanence of spirit," Transience is a study of the transitional moment. The landscapes, which Willett argues are largely "autobiographical"-- people, he suggests in a statement, are molded substantially by their surrounding environment--are not just renderings of industrial landmarks decaying amongst the grandeur of nature; instead, through energetic, impetuous brush strokes, the paintings focus on nature's reclaiming of our own borrowed past. The instability--seen here as largely generative--of our existence is highlighted through light and shadow; Transience is largely preoccupied with the reorienting of history.
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| "Elevator / Winter Shadow" Watercolor on Paper |
To quote Willett:
While the local landscape supported an industrial boom many years ago, we can now witness it slowly dismantling and reclaiming many of these hulking monuments to our industrial past. We tend to hold on to a sense of place and persistence, when in reality we are only borrowing the many things we acquire, particularly the land and structures that sustain us. We are transient beings.
Continue reading....
While the local landscape supported an industrial boom many years ago, we can now witness it slowly dismantling and reclaiming many of these hulking monuments to our industrial past. We tend to hold on to a sense of place and persistence, when in reality we are only borrowing the many things we acquire, particularly the land and structures that sustain us. We are transient beings.
Continue reading....
