PATRICK MADDEN

Patrick Madden
Artist Statement

Everywhere that I am, every face that I see, every moment that I live, I feel the presence of emotions.
I can see them with my eyes. Not just the tears of sadness, but the colors and lines that sadness creates. I paint what I see and what I feel, the intensity of those emotions.

Emotions are never lonely. Even if one emotion is dominant, the others are there, just below the surface. I try to create paintings that capture all of the feelings present in that moment--in a portrait of a face, the memory of a place I’ve been or something as simple as a bowl of fruit sitting on my table. I analyze the obvious shapes and colors. I think about everything that came before this moment, and everything that may happen next. It is then, listening with my eyes, that I see what the painting must become--the next line, the next color. “Realizing my sensations,”
Cezanne called it.

Sensing and including all of the emotions, not just the obvious ones, is for me a way to make a painting authentic to a moment, authentic to the feelings that were present. And in doing that, my paintings, I believe, endure. They become lasting. They carry that moment and those feelings through time. And if I can do that, I have done my job. I have taken this gift that was given to me and done something meaningful with it.