• Richard Patterson: Only Fans

    Timothy Taylor, London

    Timothy Taylor is pleased to present Only Fans, a new exhibition of abstract paintings by Richard Patterson (b. 1963, Leatherhead, Surrey).

    Only Fans consists of thirteen small-scale paintings that draw the viewer into a bravado performance of gestural painting, a return to the essential. Milky celadon streaks across linen canvases, a carnal palette of rose and ochre in glistening impasto that is, in one sense, a rejection of digital imagery and embrace of the physical, the passionate, the hard work of heartfelt painting. Yet Patterson’s evocation of primal sensuality is wrapped in layers of alienation that also suggest the numbing effects of searching for status and sexuality online.

    • Richard Patterson Raquel2023 Oil on linen 18 x 15 in. (45.7 x 38.1 cm)
      Richard Patterson
      Raquel2023
      Oil on linen
      18 x 15 in. (45.7 x 38.1 cm)
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    • Richard Patterson Dancer2023 Oil on linen 18 x 15 in. (45.7 x 38.1 cm)
      Richard Patterson
      Dancer2023
      Oil on linen
      18 x 15 in. (45.7 x 38.1 cm)
      Inquire

  • While the shapes of lost loves have recurred in Patterson’s work since the nineties, here her image is bound in the paradox of virtual reality: a repository of longing and distance. Patterson originally rose to fame as a Young British Artist in the 1990s, with Damien Hirst and others, for his polished, ironic style of photorealist paintings, which glossed on postmodern consumption and Gen X nihilism by recreating kitsch photographs and advertisements. Yet while earlier works reflected the spectacle of mass-produced images, in the tradition of Richard Hamilton and Gerhard Richter, Patterson’s new abstractions suggest that we have already been colonised by digital technology.

    • Richard Patterson Driver2022 Oil on linen 16 x 13 1⁄2 in. (40.6 x 34.3 cm)
      Richard Patterson
      Driver2022
      Oil on linen
      16 x 13 1⁄2 in. (40.6 x 34.3 cm)
      Inquire
    • Richard Patterson Like a Hurricane2023 Oil on linen 16 x 13 ½ in. (40.6 x 34.3 cm)
      Richard Patterson
      Like a Hurricane2023
      Oil on linen
      16 x 13 ½ in. (40.6 x 34.3 cm)
      Inquire
    • Richard Patterson Hippy2022 Oil on linen 16 x 13 ½ in. (40.6 x 34.3 cm)
      Richard Patterson
      Hippy2022
      Oil on linen
      16 x 13 ½ in. (40.6 x 34.3 cm)
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    • Richard Patterson The Harbour2022 Oil on canvas 10 x 8 in. (25.4 x 20.3 cm)
      Richard Patterson
      The Harbour2022
      Oil on canvas
      10 x 8 in. (25.4 x 20.3 cm)
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  • Shadows of women appear amid abstract swirls. In Way Hey and Up she Rises (2022), the rosy outline of a...

    Shadows of women appear amid abstract swirls. In Way Hey and Up she Rises (2022), the rosy outline of a lounging woman might refer to Gustave Courbet’s The Woman in the Waves (1868). ‘What I’m really trying to do is create a highly controlled situation in which something uncontrolled happens,’ Patterson notes of his energetic painting process, which sees him paint wet-into-wet for up to ten hours at a time. The sublimated images of women recall Willem de Kooning’s late abstract paintings of swooping pink and blue curves, as if, Patterson suggests, the shape of the artist’s wife Elaine was burned into his mind.

    • Richard Patterson Robot2022 Oil on linen 16 x 13 ½ in. (40.6 x 34.3 cm)
      Richard Patterson
      Robot2022
      Oil on linen
      16 x 13 ½ in. (40.6 x 34.3 cm)
      Inquire
    • Richard Patterson Delaunay2022 Oil on linen 16 x 13 ½ in. (40.6 x 34.3 cm)
      Richard Patterson
      Delaunay2022
      Oil on linen
      16 x 13 ½ in. (40.6 x 34.3 cm)
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    • Richard Patterson OnlyFan2022 Oil on linen 16 x 13 ½ in. (40.6 x 34.3 cm)
      Richard Patterson
      OnlyFan2022
      Oil on linen
      16 x 13 ½ in. (40.6 x 34.3 cm)
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  • In contrast, the ghostly outlines of Patterson’s female figures allude to the anonymity of data as much as the passion of the body. OnlyFan (2022), a tongue-in-cheek reference to the online porn website OnlyFans, sees the arched backside of a woman rise in a whirlpool of brushstrokes. ‘We become composites of data more than organic human beings,’ Patterson says. ‘The new world order is here. If life is lived online, even sex becomes a proxy for the thing it once was, an imitation of reality to be recorded and uploaded. It becomes an advert for something that never happened. My paintings are the opposite. They’re visceral, performative, concrete.’

    • Richard Patterson Dog2022 Oil on linen 16 x 13 1⁄2 in. (40.6 x 34.3 cm)
      Richard Patterson
      Dog2022
      Oil on linen
      16 x 13 1⁄2 in. (40.6 x 34.3 cm)
      Inquire
    • Richard Patterson Way Hey and Up She Rises2022 Oil on linen 16 x 13 ½ in. (40.6 x 34.3 cm)
      Richard Patterson
      Way Hey and Up She Rises2022
      Oil on linen
      16 x 13 ½ in. (40.6 x 34.3 cm)
      Inquire
    • Richard Patterson Dante2019 Oil on linen 16 x 13 ½ in. (40.6 x 34.3 cm)
      Richard Patterson
      Dante2019
      Oil on linen
      16 x 13 ½ in. (40.6 x 34.3 cm)
      Inquire
  • Richard Patterson

    Richard Patterson

    Born in the UK in 1963, Richard Patterson graduated from Goldsmiths College in 1986. He was included in Damien Hirst’s renowned Freeze, Surrey Docks, London (1988); as well as Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection, Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK; Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin, Germany; Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York, USA (1997-00).

    Other notable exhibitions include The Rowan Collection: Contemporary British & Irish Art, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland (2002); Painting Pictures, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany (2003); Nexus Texas, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Texas, USA (2007) and Attention to Detail, curated by Chuck Close, the FLAG Art Foundation, New York, USA (2007).

    Patterson has had solo exhibitions at Anthony d’Offay Gallery, London (1997); James Cohan Gallery, New York, USA (1999 and 2002); Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas, USA (2000), Timothy Taylor, London (2005, 2008, 2013 and 2021); the Goss-Michael Foundation, Dallas, USA (2009) and Timothy Taylor, New York (2018).

    His work is held in public and private institutions worldwide, including the Arts Council, London; British Council, London; the Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO; The Rowan Collection, Northern Ireland; and the Saatchi Collection, London. SFMoMA, San Francisco, CA; Southampton Museum and Art Gallery, Southampton; and Tate Gallery, London.