Art Opening - Patricia Carrington

On Exhibit: September 5 - October 24

OPENING RECEPTION: Thursday, September 26: 5:00 - 7:00 PM

"Let the Day Say" - Mixed Media

About the Artist: 

Patricia Carrigan is a painter and mixed media artist from East Granby, CT. She has exhibited her paintings, drawing and mixed media work since 1990 in several solo, group, national and international exhibitions. Her work is represented in many private and public collections.

Ms. Carrigan received her Master of Fine arts degree from the University of Connecticut at Storrs in 1994 in painting and drawing and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York in 1982 in painting and art education. Themes explored in her work include memory, storytelling, family histories, and symbols of everyday life.

Patricia has been awarded numerous grants including a fellowship at the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vermont and two Studio Grants from the Greater Hartford arts Council. She is a 2002 and 2004 recipient of an Individual Artist Fellowship Grant from the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism and an Artists of Rural Ireland Ballinglen Artist Residency Fellowship in Ballycastle, County Mayo, Ireland in 2005 and 2007. After twenty-five years as a professor of VFA at Manchester Community College in Manchester, Connecticut Patricia retired in 2022 enabling her to return to a full-time studio practice.

Artist Statement: 

"For me painting is about telling stories, recalling memories and connection. This current work entitled Let the Day Say is centered on issues of direction, traces of where I have been or may go, and of losing the way and finding another route back. Celtic cairns, maps, charts, trail markers, numbers, words and phrases, stories, animals, people, place names and landscapes suggest bits of imagery that can be both recognizable and at the same time vary in meaning by placement or juxtaposition. I am most interested in how daily encounters can change, alter and connect us to each other even though we have different ways of interpreting what we see. I work primarily in oil painting, drawing and mixed media on canvas, board, or paper usually on a series of 6-8 pieces at a time. I like to layer surfaces and imagery covering and uncovering as I work seeking out what lies above or below my original starting point. This process of working abstractly with some definitive reference points reveals bits of imagery slowly over time like the telling of a good story and asks the viewer to take their time."