Pat Walker at Brown's

I went last week to check out the Pat Walker show at Brown's gallery in Fondren.  She is primarily known for her traditional still life paintings, but there were a couple of landscapes and figure pieces as well.   She employs in most of her pieces a classic technique of applying think layers of paint (aka "impasto") in the light masses of the composition, while the shadows remain very thin.  By doing this, the physical light of the room reflects off of the impasto areas making them brighter.  See the detail of "Onions and Blue" below to see Pat doing this to the extreme.  You can tell that she really has fun with it.  


I have heard Pat's name come up several times over the past year, not in reference to her paintings, but concerning the destination she is creating at her home in Rolling Fork, MS.  After losing her home and studio in Bay St. Louis to Hurricane Katrina, she relocated to the Mississippi Delta.  There she is hosting painting workshops by nationally known realist painters/instructors.   It's quite an impressive line-up for this year which you can see here.  It is an impressive opportunity that she is bringing to this area and I hope that people really take advantage of it.   


Here's some of the work...

Peaches

Onions and Blue

Detail of Onions and Blue

Copper and Flowers

1937 MS Delta - Sharky County

Bounty of Color