…away from Millbank there is a healthy market for traditional British painting, as the sea of red “sold” stickers at the exhibition of recent, figurative work by Emily Patrick demonstrates.
The paintings record everyday pleasures. Patrick reveals her interior life in vignettes of objects from her Greenwich home. Red Shelves, for example, is a seemingly random collection of objects made precious by association - assorted cups, postcards, seashells and dried sheaves of corn; while another still life depicts hyacinths so vividly that the viewer literally starts sniffing for their scent.
In Two hyacinths in a yellow jug Patrick’s style is far from realistic but her talent is an almost Proustian ability to evoke the pleasures of the moment. An instantly recognisable landscape of Hampstead Heath induces a sense of well-being; a still life of sun-dappled Greenwich home. Asparagus arranged on a plate alongside a cooling cup of tea is like a taste of summer. …Young British Artists’ work invites us to reassess our surroundings; Emily Patrick’s work invites us to relish them. Her success demonstrates that an audience exists for both.
Red shelves
Coming to our Senses
Evening Standard 2000 by Rose Aidin
…away from Millbank there is a healthy market for traditional British painting, as the sea of red “sold” stickers at the exhibition of recent, figurative work by Emily Patrick demonstrates.
The paintings record everyday pleasures. Patrick reveals her interior life in vignettes of objects from her Greenwich home. Red Shelves, for example, is a seemingly random collection of objects made precious by association - assorted cups, postcards, seashells and dried sheaves of corn; while another still life depicts hyacinths so vividly that the viewer literally starts sniffing for their scent.
In Two hyacinths in a yellow jug Patrick’s style is far from realistic but her talent is an almost Proustian ability to evoke the pleasures of the moment. An instantly recognisable landscape of Hampstead Heath induces a sense of well-being; a still life of sun-dappled Greenwich home. Asparagus arranged on a plate alongside a cooling cup of tea is like a taste of summer. …Young British Artists’ work invites us to reassess our surroundings; Emily Patrick’s work invites us to relish them. Her success demonstrates that an audience exists for both.