PATRICK DENNIS
Patrick Dennis is an American oil painter born in 1955. He has lived in California, Oregon, Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, and Washington D.C. In his life, he has been a musician, restaurateur, teacher, museum specialist, gallerist, lobbyist, and founder of thirteen art festivals. He is a father, grandfather, and provider for an exceptionally large dog. The common thread throughout these various careers and locales is his love of painting for the last 30 years. He enjoys the intuitive process of painting and challenging his own perceptions and skills. Whether depicting a stark environment or the contrast of urban encroachment, his painter’s eye sees the world from the perspective of a landscape composition with endless interpretations.
Living in Cambria on California’s Central Coast provides bountiful inspiration, but it is the reflections on our precarious relationship with nature that prompts him to explore ways to render the evolution.
Living in Cambria on California’s Central Coast provides bountiful inspiration, but it is the reflections on our precarious relationship with nature that prompts him to explore ways to render the evolution.
Since 2005, Patrick has painted in a public studio space and displays his work there. This serves to engage the public in his process. As a result, he stops and starts frequently and must rely on memory to render those layers on canvas.
It is important for him to create an engaging, yet tranquil painting that conveys an impression of the struggle between nature and our encroaching urbanization. Hard edges and texture are contrasted with soft hues and ambiguous compositions. The genesis of each painting involves re-appropriating memories of a real place from fragmented or overlapping timelines to inform the layers of paint. The excavation process uncovers and exposes elements from the original composition resulting in a finished product that represents a suggestion of the original intent. Memories, after all, become obscured, losing sharpness over time, thus the impressionistic results.
“It’s not only about rendering the elements of sky, earth, and water in variation. It’s about capturing the memory fragment salvaged from the experience.”
While primarily self-taught, Patrick studied under four artists as a studio apprentice over twelve years. Patrick’s educational background includes a degree in Psychology and several years of experience as a teacher in Los Angeles. His exhibition experience includes exhibitions in New York, London, and California, with many (larger) works held in private collections in the United States, France, UK, and Australia. He is represented by Chapman Art Gallery in MA and Allesandro Berni Gallery in NY.
Patrick Dennis, Aqua Velva, 60" x 36", Oil on Canvas with Paper Underlay Papers include McCall’s Textile Pattern, Concerto IX in A Minor, C. DeBeroit, 2024, $4875