Art Prof's Work Seen in New York Times
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Dec. 21, 2009) - The artwork of Ebony G. Patterson, assistant professor of painting at the University of Kentucky Department of Art, was featured in the art review "Colorful, Witty, Noisy: A West Indies Mélange" published Dec. 6 in the New York Times.
The New York Times review by Benjamin Genocchio includes an image of Patterson's mixed-media work, "Endz (Khani + di krew)" (detail), on exhibit through March in the art show "Rockstone and Bootheel" at Real Art Ways, in Hartford, Conn. Patterson's work was also featured in "'Rockstone and Bootheel' Comes To City With Nation's Third-Largest West Indian Population" by Roger Catlin of the Hartford Courant and "Rockstone and Bootheel @ Real Art Ways" by Sam McKinniss of Big Red & Shiny.
"Rockstone and Bootheel" takes its name from a Jamaican dub-metal song ("Rockstone and Bootheel" by Ginny) and is a colloquial phrase that means "taking a journey." The exhibition is composed of many journeys, sometimes conflicting, all influenced by the social, political and economic conditions of life in the West Indies and the diaspora. Curators Kristina Newman-Scott and Yona Backer selected challenging work by new artists from the Anglophone Caribbean and diaspora for the art show.
Patterson's work is attracting attention to the talent on faculty at UK.
"Ebony’s inclusion in an international show of this stature, and the fact that the New York Times selects her work to illustrate its quality, is a testament to her growing reputation as an artist and a reflection on the kind of talent we can attract here to the University of Kentucky," says Benjamin C. Withers, chair of the Department of Art.
Patterson, who came to UK in the fall of 2007, has participated in several group exhibitions at institutions like the Brooklyn Museum, Tacoma Contemporary, Kingston's Mutual Gallery and France's Centre International d`Art Contemporain. Amid her group exhibition credits are "Jamaica Biennial 2004" and "Jamaica Biennial 2006" at the National Gallery of Jamaica, and the "Royal Overseas League Travel Scholars 2002 Exhibition" presented in both London and Edinburgh. Patterson, whose work is part of several public and private collections, also has staged solo exhibits at the University of Montana; Mutual Gallery in Kingston; University City Library in St. Louis, Mo.; and Seeline Gallery in Santa Monica, Calif.
In 2008, Patterson exhibited in and served as curator of the art show "Taboo: Identities, Race, Sexuality + The Body," which sought to educate the Jamaican public about issues it has yet to confront as valid constructs of Jamaican identity. This show exhibited at both the Olympia Art Center, in Kingston, Jamaica and the Tuska Center of Contemporary Art at UK.