Big news! Anne was honored with the Distinguished Alumni Award at Greenwich Country Day School!
See slideshow of Anne’s synesthetic process
Anne generates many of her ideas for all her work by listening to classical music. As she listens to a composition she creates thumbnail sketches in watercolors and colored pencils. Many of these thumbnails were studies for projections for the Mercury Soul project.
GRATITUDE
Through my life’s work I realize how lucky I have been, for the support and inspiration I have received from both individuals and institutions. It is extremely difficult to succeed without the help of others. Life is not a solo endeavor. It takes a village to keep the world spinning in the right direction.
With deep appreciation, Anne Patterson Studio donates annually to several charities, to help protect the nature which inspires and the most vulnerable among us. If you would like to contribute to these amazing non-profit initiatives, I encourage you to explore their work below:
About
• Artist Statement • CV
American, b. 1960
Anne Patterson is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Brooklyn. Her body of work consists of paintings, sculptures and large-scale multimedia installations that combine sculpture, architecture, lighting, video, music and scent. Drawing from her background in theater set design she uses these modalities to create an artistic practice, hovering somewhere between the visual, experiential and immersive.
Patterson’s work is inspired by the concept of multiplicity, and a fascination with the connection between parts and their whole. What happens when you start with one simple material or shape and multiply it? Why is the whole so much greater than the sum of its parts? How do instances of material innumberability stand to function as metaphor in our society?
Patterson’s art explores these questions by utilizing one material in great multiplicity – 7 miles of aluminum wire strands, 100’s of lengths of piano wire or 34 miles of satin ribbon – to create awe-inspiring metaphorical works, which encapsulate the transformational power of group dynamics. Her work explores how using one shape, material, or form repeatedly can create something larger than the sum of its parts – something great and overwhelming in its scale and beauty. As the individual parts amass, together, they take on qualities that transcend those of the parts, resulting in powerful visual and kinetic effects that amaze, astonish, and uplift.
As a synesthete (when she hears sound, she sees color and shape,) Patterson seeks to create an experience where viewers’ senses can overlap, producing a constructed synesthesia. By combining skills learned from years as a theater designer, as well as a sense of color, light, shadow and movement, Patterson is able to produce immersive environments which transport audiences to a multi-sensory realm.
Patterson’s large-scale installations have filled cathedrals, office buildings, and galleries across the country with miles of fabric, aluminum ribbon, and metal birds. She created Graced With Light, an installation inspired by music, as the 2013 Artist-in-Residence at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. Twenty miles of ribbon interacted with the cathedral's vaulted ceiling arches, carrying visitors’ prayers, dreams, and wishes skyward. Art for Earth, commissioned by the fashion house Ermenegildo Zegna in 2020, was made of thousands of lengths of fabric repurposed from Zegna fabrics. Her most recent installation, Night Woods, opened in the summer of 2022 at Color Factory Chicago (Willis Tower).
In her watercolors and smaller sculptures, Patterson’s ability to delve into the natural world for inspiration is evident. The pattern and color of her paintings create a strong emphasis on the senses. Viewing the paintings and sculptures transforms itself into feeling, which reveals Patterson’s intuitive understanding of nature. The quality of the “series” reflects the moment-to-moment aliveness of encounter, where the multiplicity of perspectives of the landscape or natural object brings to life the sensation of experience.
Anne has exhibited widely including solo exhibitions at The Ringling Museum and Alfstad & Contemporary. Her work has been shown at The Trapholt Museum, Denmark; Cristina Grajales, New York; Scope Art Fair, Miami; Aqua Art Fair, Miami; Building Bridges Art Exchange, Los Angeles; Valerie Dillon Gallery, New York; Denise Bibro, New York; Cade Tompkins Projects, Providence, RI; Jessica Hagen Gallery, Newport, RI, and One Twelve Gallery, Atlanta. Her paintings and sculptures are in private, public, and corporate collections across the USA (Tishman Speyer, Tribune Media, Nortek, New York Presbyterian Hospital, Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital, Rhode Island Blue Cross) and in London.
Anne’s theatrical and symphonic partnerships have included major venues across the United States: Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Arena Stage, The Wilma Theater, The Kennedy Center, Alliance Theater and prestigious symphonies throughout the country (San Francisco, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Chicago, Seattle). Patterson was the 2014 and 2016 CODAaward Winner for Liturgical Art and received a Creative Capital Award in 2008. She is a fellow of the Hermitage Artist’s Retreat. Patterson received her B.A. of Architecture from Yale University and her M.F.A. in Theater Design from The Slade School of Art, London UK.