OPENING RECEPTION: 1st THURSDAY, JUNE 2, 2022 | FROM 5-8pm
Sullivan Goss Gallery is excited to announce an exhibition of new paintings by PATRICIA CHIDLAW. As a realist painter, Patricia has long been attracted to reflections in water. She is known for her paintings of urban and urban-adjacent landscapes at twilight and dawn, often incorporating the changes of light reflected in puddles, rivers, and yes, swimming pools. For the past four decades, she has made a career out of chasing beautiful light in gritty and workaday environments, painting the glow of neon and street lights, the reflections off concrete, chrome, glass, water, and always, the spectacle in the sky above. For this show, she decided to explicitly showcase the ever-changing shimmer of light that animates swimming pools at all times of day.
When the Gallery was brainstorming to find a name for this exhibition, we initially wanted a title that would evoke the refreshment of water on a warm summer day, the ubiquity of swimming pools in Southern California, or the playfulness of the suburban backyard pool, but we realized that going forward most everyone would probably refer to this exhibition as The Pool Show. There likely won’t be another exhibition comprised entirely of paintings of swimming pools, so why not?
The Pool Show offers up water in all its forms and colors: still and rippling, at night when it’s purple and at noon when it’s turquoise blue. The paintings are split evenly – half with figures in the pools, half without. The beach ball (an icon of pool parties) makes an appearance in two paintings of perfectly still water, floating quietly and alone after the action has passed.
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
PATRICIA CHIDLAW came to Santa Barbara to earn her bachelor’s degree in fine art from UCSB. She put down roots in Santa Barbara, and has been exhibiting widely throughout California for decades. Sullivan Goss has represented the artist since 2016, but started working with her in 2007 for the Gallery’s THE URBAN MYTH exhibition.
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.
