Pat Andrea: Du Bon Gout au Comet 67R
Private Collection 1988 – 2008
Galerie Municipale Julio Gonzalez
Arcueil, France
April 29th – 23 May 2009

A cube: the plane of battle.
A gigantic women who resembles a Faberge egg.
The blond angel of our exotic dreams; oh naughty Catholics.
Doors, doors, doors.

Classical statues dress themselves in yellow suits.
Thick ankles, flat breast and visible tan lines.
Emotional sex does not mix with doubt and laughter.

We tumble towards each other, like balls across the floor.
We bump against the primary coloured walls.
We want to be children again but we are certainly adults, watch out for the dog!

Safety in the cube but there’s the door.
Cardboard cut-out, don’t grimace so.
I like your dress but think you look better naked.
The still life of human minds.

Questions to the Artist.

What is the significance of the dog and the doors?

The setting is usually what is around me when I am searching for a subject and in most cases this is my studio in Buenos Aires. My studio is in a 100 year old house and it has strong doors.  Doors lead to other spaces; they have that element of exterior and interior.  But you shouldn’t ask too many questions, I simply paint situations in a space. I don’t know what they represent, my paintings have titles but no stories attached. They have certain realism but it is invented, the story is done by painting the painting and it is different for each viewer.  My studio just happens to be a convenient space.

I never had a dog growing up but I introduced the dog to my family when I brought one home which I rescued.  I don’t have a dog now, as a dog ties you down to one place and I want to travel. Dogs are very present in my paintings, but not so much now.  I have developed a strong relationship with the dog. I have re-invented it as a vessel of emotions. In terms of the composition, physically the dog is horizontal and the humans are vertical and the dog lies across the humans connected them.

It is interesting that you would use the dog as a symbol for unresolved problems as traditionally the dog in Western painting is used as a symbol of loyalty. 

In African tribes the dog is a symbol of sex.  So it’s interesting that I use a dog as a vessel for problems which most in relationships are related to sex.

There seems to be a strong influence of South America in your paintings?

Yes these are evident in my later period. I needed a change of life, a real break. I went to South America where I met my second wife. So now I do a lot of back and forth between there and here. The painting ‘Unas voladras mas’ is influences by a rain dance in north Veracruz where a big mast is stuck in the ground and men climb to the top and then tie their feet to rope and jump off and swing back and forth. I have, of course adapted into women.

Have critics described your work as surrealism?

There is a strong surrealist current in my work, but I wouldn’t describe myself as a surrealist as I think there is too much humour in my work for surrealism. They are rather quite serious.

You paint a lot of women, have you had a bad reception from women, do women feel that your paintings are derogatory?

No, on the contrary the opposite. I don’t understand women but I love them so I paint them to understand them. I recompose them in my own manner but it’s not done aggressively.

Are you a leg-man?

Yes it’s what I notice first in a woman! I represent the essential aspects of man: heads on legs.  When you are a child this is how you draw people. It is the general universal symbol of man – two legs and a head with no body.  I just I haven’t deviated from that.  I paint how I see them a human being who thinks and moves.

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http://www.arpsgallery.com/biography.php?artistid=010