Patricia Chidlaw

Midnight Swim

2022

Painter and art critic Wyndam Lewis wrote “Art is the expression of an enormous preference.” We gravitate to the visual based on what appeals to us deep in our souls. That preference is such a personal and complicated response to countless factors - and not something easy to quantify. Patricia Chidlaw’s preferences - what she find visually engaging and beautiful - have stayed remarkably consistent over her forty years of painting. The morning light on the stark pavement of the L.A. River still takes her breath away. She is drawn to those older parts of cities - the forgotten alleys and underpasses. And yet these very spaces she finds so compelling are vanishing at an ever increasing speed as cities evolve and modernize. When asked what kind of paintings she makes, Chidlaw describes them as "urban landscapes” but her subjects are certainly not all urban – some are suburban, some are rural small towns, and some are ruins, such as a faded sign and abandoned business bleaching in the desert sun as once populated areas return to their former empty silence. While she often depicts older architectural forms, it is clear that these are not paintings about nostalgia – they are all contemporary scenes, recently observed. Chidlaw is endlessly attracted to light - to the changing light of the morning and evening, to how shadows play over Los Angeles, to the subtle shades of color in the sky and how that playings over clouds. And while natural light is a huge influence, Chidlaw is deeply drawn to the concrete and steel of the constructed world. Chidlaw writes of her explorations for this new series, “I have had a few recent visual surprises - who knew swimming pools would become illuminated with L.E.D. lights, that can segue through the entire color spectrum. In these places I have chosen, I think the attraction goes beyond the particulars of of patterns of light and dark and color to the emotions these places evoke for me.” When an artist chooses to make a painting of a particular place, the message is “I find this to be important” and in depicting that space, guides the viewer to find what the artist herself is so drawn to. Chidlaw encourages us to take a second look at the spaces we so often drive past - to stop and revel in the angles of bridges, the shadows falling across a cityscape, the vistas framed by unexpectedly elegant power lines - to take that moment and find the hidden beauty of these urban landscapes. Patricia Chidlaw received her BA from the University of California, Santa Barbara and has exhibited extensively on the West Coast and at numerous art fairs throughout the US. In 2014, she was the subject of a solo exhibition, Realm of the Commonplace - Paintings by Patricia Chidlaw, at the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno, NV. Her work appears in many private collections and has been featured in THE Magazine, ArtScene, Southwest Art, Artweek, and on KCET.