A solo exhibition of new works by Patricia Fabricant, curated by Christopher Stout
Opening Reception: Wednesday, October 30th, 6—8pm at 245 Broome Street, NYC
Artist Talk and Catalog Signing: Saturday, November 16th, 3—5pm
Closing Tea and Gallery Tour: Saturday, November 23rd, 3—5pm
“Nature abhors a vacuum.” – Aristotle
Equity Gallery is pleased to announce “Horror Vacui,” a solo exhibition of new works by Patricia Fabricant. The exhibition title contains an acknowledgement of the Latin phrase meaning “a fear of empty spaces” and marks a continuum of Fabricant’s practice in gouache-based process-driven abstraction.
In the exhibition catalog, Paul D’Agostino, Ph.D., excogitates that, “Patricia Fabricant’s paintings have long been characterized by resplendent palettes, layered treatments, innovative abstractions, compositional precisions, and an optically sympathetic sense of linear finesse that can only be yielded by an artist working intuitively and with manual certainty at once, and with a profound awareness of the pictorial nuances and expressive ranges of the materials at hand. In such an aesthetic space, the artist has created dreamily non-objective color fields and abstract organics, polychrome wood grains and politically cogent figurations, and chromatically charged, deftly interwoven self-portraits. Insofar as visual artworks might exude multisensory stimulation, Fabricant’s paintings furnish a colorfully exuberant playlist of polyphonic deliciousness.”
Here is a consideration of the paintings from Horror Vacui In the artist’s own words:
“I have a deep and abiding interest in process-driven work, from mandalas and yantras to Aboriginal song-line paintings, Islamic tiles, and the Pattern and Decoration movement.
I also draw inspiration from spiritualists such as Emma Kunz, Hilma af Klint, Agnes Pelton, and early Kandinsky. My process involves losing myself in a meditative state while immersed in making the work, and a subsequent desire to create that experience for the viewer through the repetition
of patterned lines, complex layering, and the optical vibrations created by color relationships. I am also interested in the tension between lyrical gesture and tightly controlled patterning. I’m not looking for hard edges or precise symmetry. I’m interested in movement, pattern, density, and perhaps above all the tension of color on color. I embrace visceral, unapologetic, decorative beauty and want to make the viewer’s eyeballs vibrate.”
Horror Vacui opens Wednesday, October 30 and is on view until Saturday, November 23. The weekly exhibition viewing hours are Wednesday to Saturday, Noon to 6:00pm. For more information on this exhibition or other NYAE events, kindly email the gallery at info@nyartistsequity.org.
ABOUT PATRICIA FABRICANT
Patricia Fabricant is a painter curator, and award-winning book designer, born in New York City. She received her BA from Wesleyan University and studied painting in Florence Italy. Her abstract and figurative paintings have been exhibited widely at such galleries as M David & Co, Front Room, SFA Projects, Equity Gallery, Morgan Lehman, the Painting Center, and 490 Atlantic. Her curatorial practice includes three editions of the benefit group show, Among Friends, Studio Mates at Front Room Gallery, and With the Grain, at Equity Gallery. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
ABOUT NEW YORK ARTIST EQUITY ASSOCIATION AND EQUITY GALLERY
New York Artist Equity Association was founded in 1947 to promote opportunities for artists and address economic issues affecting American artists. More than 160 leading American artists of the 1940s founded the organization, including Will Barnet, Thomas Hart Benton, George Biddle, Paul Cadmus, Stuart Davis, Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, Edward Hopper, Leon Kroll, Jacob Lawrence, John Marin, Louise Nevelson, John Sloan and the first President Yasuo Kuniyoshi.
NYAE opened Equity Gallery on the Lower East Side of New York City in October 2015. Equity Gallery simultaneously serves as a gallery for artists to exhibit their work and as a community hub for staging professional workshops and innovative programming exploring critical issues of interest to artists and curators. As such, NYAE acts to counterbalance today’s increased focus on the art market by preserving an experiential space that privileges process over product and intent over style whereby artists and allied professionals may come together as trusted stewards charged with advancing visual culture.
Additional information is available via the organization’s website, nyartistsequity.org. NYAE is led by Executive Director Michael Gormley.