Largely self-taught, he has exhibited widely throughout Northern Ireland, Southern Ireland, London, Europe and USA and his work is held in a number of private collections in various countries.
To date Patrick’s work has been largely about memory. Much of his early work centred around dark subjects such as death, decay, containment and aggression with a desire to make unsavoury subjects into attractive physical forms.
Life events narrowed the focus of the artist’s work somewhat. Truncated heads and torsos were conceived from a realisation during a personal grieving process of a frequent inability of the male to communicate feelings and express emotion. The dark nature of the work became almost an outlet for a grieving process and a conduit for it to work through. ‘Solitary’ marks a point in the artist’s career where he has drawn a line under the past.
Whilst the work is still heavily influenced by memory, the artist looks back mostly fondly. There is still a hint of darkness, however the introduction of striking colour to familiar forms changes the mood and the dynamic of the work making it more playful.
