Ebony G. Patterson | …to dig between the cuts, beneath the leaves, below the soil… | Hales New York

Opening Reception:
6pm – 8pm
24 October 2019
Exhibition:
October 24 – December 20, 2019
Hale’s New York

547 West 20th Street

Gallery installation shot

Hales is delighted to announce …to dig between the cuts, beneath the leaves, below the soil…, an exhibition of recent works by Ebony G. Patterson (b. 1981 Kingston, Jamaica). In her first solo exhibition with the gallery, Patterson continues with her exploration of gardens, an essential arc of her practice. This exhibition comprises of a new series of monumental paper collages which take their departure from Patterson’s celebrated touring solo exhibition, …while the dew is still on the roses…, which first opened at Pérez Museum of Art Miami (November 2018), and is currently on view at Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY (through January 5, 2020).

Patterson began working on the collages in this exhibition in her studio in Jamaica, before completing them on a residency at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, AR, in 2019. In Patterson’s work, she explores the idea of the garden as both real and imagined, in relation to the procurement and legacies of postcolonial space:

“I am interested in how gardens – natural but cultivated settings – operate with social demarcations. I investigate their relationship to beauty, dress, class, race, the body, land and death.”
(Ebony G. Patterson, 2018)

In …to dig between the cuts, beneath the leaves, below the soil… Patterson continues to deftly combine splendor with danger. Framing the garden as an active site of power, Patterson explores it as a metaphor for postcolonial space and an extension of the body. Juxtaposing visibility and invisibility; death and survival, Patterson’s works remain filled with an overwhelming sense of hope – in the toughest of circumstances, life will always grow.

Above text and image adapted from email and website.