Chinese Restaurant, 2017
28 x 28 inches | oil on canvas
Patricia Chidlaw was born in San Francisco, California and moved to Germany six months later when her father was deployed for a three year tour of duty. Thus began many years of travel and nomadic family life as her father’s career as an officer took them on a tour of the world. Much of Chidlaw’s childhood was spent looking out the windows of a Chevrolet as the family drove through Europe and the United States.
Patricia’s earliest exposure to art was in Europe at the age of thirteen when her father was stationed in France. Patricia and her mother would visit cathedrals and museums as well as flea markets and shops, educating her eye for art and her sensibility to things that are time-warm and reflect a sense of the past. In 1969 Patricia landed in Santa Barbara, California to attend the University where she received a degree in painting and has been there ever since.
Patricia Chidlaw describes her works as “urban landscapes” to distinguish them from people-less outdoor scenes and seascapes in nature.
But that doesn’t tell the whole story of her art.
She could be described as an illustrator of everyday American life.
“Crop the bottom!” said the comment on Instagram about Patricia Chidlaw’s painting for the 38th Santa Barbara International Film Festival poster. It was a reaction that we expected. But it is the bottom half of the piece (which showcases a parking lot with cars stationed against a wall) that elevates the work to the sublime.
“To be sure, Patricia’s work beautifully captures environments while not editing out the visual noise of power lines, graffiti, and disrepair,” says David B. Walker, CEO of the Nevada Museum of Art, where Chidlaw had a major exhibit in 2014. “These elements play antagonist roles in her eloquent compositions.”
Just in front of the 2023 Academy Awards, the Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF) is bringing some of the industry's top stars for a multi-day event of films and tributes. SBIFF Executive Director Roger Durling says in its 38th year, the festival will have 52 world premieres, 79 U.S. premiers and 43 countries will be represented. The festival runs from February 8 to 18. The date has moved in recent years to stay close to the Oscar nominations and awards ceremony. Durling enthusiastically talked about the event as he unveiled the poster from acclaimed local artist Patricia Chidlaw inside the Sullivan and Goss art gallery in downtown Santa Barbara.
The Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF) has unveiled its poster and programming for this year's festival set to kick off on February 8.
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A press conference was held at the Sullivan Goss art gallery on Wednesday morning where Santa Barbara artist Patricia Chidlaw was announced as the creator of this year's poster.
As a realist painter, Patricia Chidlaw has long been attracted to reflection in water.
The well-known Santa Barbara artist is known for, among other things, her paintings of urban and urban-adjacent landscapes at twilight and dawn, often incorporating the changes of light reflected in either a puddle, a river or a swimming pool.
Over the course of her decades-long career, she has made paintings of neon lights, street lights and both sun and moonlight reflected in water.
For her current exhibition, “The Pool Show,” at the Sullivan Goss Gallery through July 25, Ms. Chidlaw decided to explicitly showcase the ever-changing reflections that occur in swimming pools at all times of the day.
Coinciding with Women’s History Month in March, “Real Women: Realist Art by American Women” is on view through March 29 at Sullivan Goss-An American Gallery, 11 E. Anapamu St.
The works, which cover the last 90 years, feature drawing, oil painting, print-making and photography by local and regional artists along with national historical figures.
Among the artists in the exhibition are Susan McDonnell, Patricia Chidlaw, Leslie Lewis Sigler, Sarah Lamb and Dorothy Churchill-Johnson. Their works are shown here along with background information by Susan Bush, curator of contemporary art at the gallery.
FACED WITH REAL LIFE EVERY DAY, women artists have a unique perspective, especially those focusing their art on the details of their experience.
Any time is the right time to check in on the evolving artistic life of Patricia Chidlaw, one of the finer and more singular painters of note who call Santa Barbara home. But, ironically or not, her work — with its attitudinal and stylistic links to the lonely luster of Edward Hopper’s painting — suddenly feels more timely and emotionally resonant than ever in our current era.
Down through time, easel painting has been invented, reinvented, constructed, deconstructed, put to death and brought back to life again.
Solidly grounded in the historical elements of pictorial representation, Patricia Chidlaw’s approach to painting is vibrantly alive in a new exhibition at Santa Barbara’s Sullivan Goss – An American Gallery. Here, steadfast windows are open to a world of unique and overlooked wonders from California and the desert Southwest.
Monday, July 8, 2019, was the last day to view a collection of landscape painter Ray Strong’s work at the Wildling Museum in Santa Ynez Valley, the day coincidentally, I sat with Patricia Chidlaw in her studio to talk about painting.
The Sullivan Goss’curatorial forces that be opted not to pussyfoot about or take rhetorical roads less traveled with its current group show, “The Artists of UCSB” with “UCSB” in jumbo font. The gist: all artists aboard are alums of the university, and some are past and current teachers there. The show came about as a response to a gesture from the University to try to mediate the gap between life and culture on campus and in the Santa Barbara community, and was timed to run during the recent all-Gaucho reunion.
To the gradually expanding list of cultural traditions defining Christmastime in Santa Barbara, we must fully acknowledge “100 Grand,” if it hasn’t already had its place secured on the official list.
Now in its seventh year and looking healthy and splendid, “100 Grand” is the pithily, cryptically and a accurately named exhibition at Sullivan Goss that offers art-hungry (and neophyte art-buying) Santa Barbarans a crack at 100 artworks priced under $1,000.
AN INCUBATOR OF EMERGING TALENT AND AN ENTRYWAY FOR BEGINNING COLLECTORS, the seventh annual 100 Grand exhibition is now on view at Sullivan Goss through January 31st. Featuring 100 quality works of art for $1,000 or less, the exhibition is a favorite for lookers and buyers during the holiday season.
“This show is an opportunity for local artists to get their work on our gallery walls. There are so many great artists in Santa Barbara, but we can only represent a handful,” shared Susan Bush, exhibition curator.
AN ANALYSIS OF THE ARTIST'S WORK
Patricia’s painting style is reminiscent of Edward Hopper. Her compositions are graphic and the mood is often lonely and quiet. She cites Hopper as an influence and has an annual Hopper calendar hanging in her studio, keeping track of the present time while she paints of things remembered.
Snapshots of the edges of urban life show up frequently in her paintings. Some are timeless and some are places whose heyday has passed. More about place than people, American iconography and road-side signs create the narrative. Her paintings often reflect the by gone era of the American automobile.
Patricia is well known for capturing the light as it shifts from dusk to night, when lights are just coming on in the cities. Neon lights reflected in a puddle from a recent rain and a diner sign buzzing to life. Patricia’s proximity to Los Angeles shows up in paintings that are right out of a Raymond Chandler novel and relate to the genre of film noir.
EDUCATION
Under Construction
AWARDS & AFFILIATIONS
Emeritus Member of the Oak Group
COLLECTIONS
Hilbert Museum of California Art
EXHIBITIONS
Solo Exhibitions
2024 PATRICIA CHIDLAW, Nighthawks, Santa Barbara CA
2023 PATRICIA CHIDLAW, Billis Williams, Los Angeles CA
2022 PATRICIA CHIDLAW: The Pool Show, Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara CA
2021 PATRICIA CHIDLAW, Billis Williams Gallery, Los Angeles CA
2020 Elsewhere, Paradise, Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara CA
2018 The Moving Picture Show, Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara CA
2016 Departures, Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA
2014 Realm of the Commonplace: Paintings by Patricia Chidlaw, Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV
2009 On the Road, Terrence Rogers Fine Art, Santa Monica, CA
2008 Everything Must Go, Terrence Rogers Fine Art, Santa Monica, CA
2007 Everything Becomes Electric, Terrence Rogers Fine Art, Santa Monica, CA
2006 Time and Again, Terrence Rogers Fine Art, Santa Monica, CA
2006 New Spin, Terrence Rogers Fine Art, Santa Monica, CA
2005 On Blue Highways, Terrence Rogers Fine Art, Santa Monica, CA
2004 Easton Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
2003 Once/Again, Terrence Rogers Fine Art, Santa Monica, CA
2003 Terrence Rogers Fine Art, Santa Monica, CA
2002 Easton Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
2001 Santa Barbara Natural History Museum, Santa Barbara, CA
2001 Terrence Rogers Fine Art, Santa Monica, CA
2000 Easton Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
2000 Paintings by Patricia, Terrence Rogers Fine Art, Santa Monica, CA
1998 Vanishing Points, Joyce Robins Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
1998 Roadshow, Easton Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
1997 Vanishing Points on the American Highway, Tatistcheff/Rogers, Santa Monica, CA
1997 Long Distance, Bakersfield College Art Gallery, Bakersfield, CA
1996 Easton Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
1994 The Urban Landscape, The Waterhouse Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
1994 Recent Paintings, The Waterhouse Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
1993 Standard Time, The Waterhouse Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
1993 Daylight Savings, The Waterhouse Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
1992 Vanishing Points, The Waterhouse Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
1992 Painting the Town, The Waterhouse Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
1991 A Certain Light, The Waterhouse Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
1991 City Lights, The Waterhouse Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
1987 Faulkner Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
1984 Santa Barbara Portrait, Faulkner Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
Group Exhibitions
2015 Agoraphobia, Portraits of American Interiors, Sullivan Goss Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
2013 The Cityscape Show III, George Billis Gallery, LA
2012 The Cityscape Show II, Images of L.A. Land and City, George Billis Gallery, LA
2011 Cityscapes, Featuring Patricia Chidlaw and Gus Heinze, Hespe Gallery, San Francisco
2011 The Cityscape Show, George Billis Gallery, LA
2011 Five at Eleven, Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA
2011 The Cityscape Show, George Billis Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2011 San Diego Art Fair, Koplin del Rio Gallery, San Diego, CA
2011 Cityscapes, Hespe Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2011 Small Works, Hespe Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2010 Urban Light, Marcia Burtt Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
2007 Stilllife Show, Reynolds Gallery, Westmont College, Santa Barbara, CA
2007 The Urban Myth, Sullivan Goss Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
2007 Oak Group Show, Palm Loft Gallery, Carpinteria, CA
2007 Westmont Still Show, Santa Barbara, CA
2006 Urban California, California Art Club, Pasadena, CA
2005 Trains and Trees, Terrence Rogers Fine Art, Santa Monica, CA
2004 Windows: 4 Views, Terrence Rogers Fine Art, Santa Monica, CA
2004 The Political Landscape, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2003 Santa Barbara After Dark, Fielding Graduate Institute, Santa Barbara, CA
2002 Painting the Santa Clara Valley, Ventura County Museum of Art, Ventura, CA
2001 Chinatown, California Art Club at Hong Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2000 In the Eye of the Beholder, Terrence Rogers Fine Art, Santa Monica, CA
1999 California Style - Contemporary Urban Scene, California Heritage Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1997 Two-Person Exhibition, Reynolds Gallery, Westmont College, Santa Barbara, CA
1996 After Midnight, Tatistcheff/Rogers, Santa Monica, CA
1996 Summer in Paradise, Easton Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
1988 Four Californians Working for Life, Arpel Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
1984 Landscapes, The Art Corner Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
1981 Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, Santa Barbara, CA
1981 Inner Light, Cabrillo Arts Center, Santa Barbara, CA
1980 7 from Santa Barbara, Cabrillo Arts Center, Santa Barbara, CA
1979 Arts Festival Invitational Exhibition, Santa Barbara Natural History Museum, Santa Barbara, CA
