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Parallels: The Architecture of Impermanence exhibit now open

AMES — Iowa State University’s University Museums is announcing a solo exhibition of paintings and drawings by Iowa artist Joe Patrick to open on Jan. 17 and run through July 30 at the Brunnier Art Museum, 295 Scheman Bldg., Ames. Admission is free.

Patrick has spent a lifetime using art to depict transient, yet energetic moments in time, from the haphazard structures he focuses on in his paintings of Oaxacan marketplaces to his quickly drawn portraits of his friends.

He spent nearly 40 years teaching at The University of Iowa School of Art and Art History and has been creating art in Iowa for more than 50 years. He has also been traveling to Oaxaca, Mexico for the past 40 years and now he and his wife spend half their year there. Oaxaca is a part of Patrick and has been the focus of his paintings for the last 25 years, beginning with the large scale marketplace depictions to the abstracted details of those larger scenes he focuses on today. His engagement with Oaxaca has given him abundant inspiration to paint a lifestyle that was not his own, but that he has grown to love and need in his world.

Patrick’s unique portraits depict subjects both in Iowa and Oaxaca, linking his two lives and homes. His portraits extend the sense of community and comfort as he draws the people who define his home, both in Iowa and Mexico. They are the places and people he goes back to.

Together the paintings and drawings exude a similar attitude – moments are fleeting and things may not look as they once did, but there is strength in the understanding of the impermanence of the world, both human and created. The market paintings and portrait drawings by Patrick speak of an artist who values how expressive life can be. Those moments in time are given permanence in his art, but are not meant to be dwelt upon with too much sentimentality, as there is always a new moment to explore.

On June 11 from 2-4 p.m., Brunnier Art Museum, 295 Scheman Bldg., 1805 Center Drive, there will be an artist’s reception. Join us in celebrating Joe Patrick and the exhibition Parallels: The Architecture of Impermanence currently on view in the Brunnier Art Museum. Brief remarks by the artist and University Museums Assistant Curator Adrienne Gennett will begin at 2:30 p.m. Light refreshments will be served. For more information on activities surrounding the Patrick exhibit or the University Museums, call 515-294-9500 or visit the museum’s new website at www.museums.iastate.edu.

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