Donald Patten
Body Parts
Exhibit Location: Cyr Gallery
Meet the Artist: Tuesday, October 8 | 6:00-7:00 pm
Notes: Donald’s paintings are for sale. Please stop by the reference desk for more information.
About the Exhibit
Body Parts is a series of illustrative oil paintings of individual human body parts. Each is depicted bizarrely as a way to show how we are reliant on our physical bodies to perceive the world and to maintain bodily functions, yet they are imperfect and will eventually fail.
The origins of this painting series began in the Fall of 2021 as five oil paintings, each depicting one of the five senses of human perception. Those have been sold since and the five paintings that depict the five senses are newer editions. I was inspired to make more paintings and in October of 2022 I made eighteen paintings and The Rock and Art Shop in Bangor exhibited them in their window display for the Halloween season. I was pleased by the praise I received from the exhibition and several paintings sold. So I made more to now have a total of twenty paintings.
My progress making these started as charcoal underdrawings on the canvases. Then I used Burnt Sienna oil paint with turpenoid as a paint thinner to apply several thin layers of sepia tones. Then I used alizarin crimson, cadmium red, naples yellow, and ivory black pigments to make the remaining palette and complete them. After a year being dried, I applied a layer of Damar Varnish for a glossy finish.
For the paintings about the five senses, I used black gesso on canvases and then used white charcoal to make the underdrawings. I used burnt sienna and titanium white with turpenoid to make the underpainting, and then I used alizarin crimson and ivory black to complete the paintings. After a year of being dry, I varnished them using Damar Varnish.
About Donald
Donald Patten is an artist from Belfast, Maine. He has recently graduated from the University of Maine at Augusta with a bachelor’s degree in Studio Arts. An accomplished multimedia artist, Donald has exhibited his work in gallery spaces in Bangor and across Maine. He participates in multiple art fairs around the Mid-Coast region of Maine during the summer and winter seasons. He works as a part-time figure drawing coordinator for the figure drawing group at Waterfall Arts in Belfast, Maine. As an artist, he currently produces illustrative oil paintings, charcoal figure drawings, graphite illustrations, and ceramic sculptures. His future plans are to enter a Master of Fine Arts program in the near future to become a professor of drawing and painting.
More information:
Website: donaldlpatten.newgrounds.com/art
Instagram: @donald.patten
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100082800218427
Twitter: @DonaldLPatten
