Marlborough Broome Street is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new painting, photographs and sculpture by Grear Patterson. The title Manhattan Beach alludes to New York and the Southern California town--both of which are aspirational and idealized locations. The paintings depict isolated and cropped patterns from the artist’s extensive collection of Hawaiian shirts. Some patterns are painted from memory and photos of Patterson wearing particular shirts that are long gone, while others are of deteriorating ones that he paints to remember before it is too late. These paintings give new life to soon-departed objects and are both keepsakes and signifiers of identity. They are portraits of already stylized visions of the exotic, and create portals into imagined, idealized tropical locales. 

Patterson is constantly photographing his surroundings. Depictions of houses (some random, some of friends and family’s, others for aesthetic value), details of landscapes: a close up of a wheat field, a lonesome volleyball court on the beach and nature, objects lying around, from toys and books on a shelf, to things seen on the sidewalk, Patterson’s work is about keeping memories, holding on to fleeting moments and being able to relive them through the memorializing process of art making. Furthermore, they engage the viewer by acknowledging the increasing universality of our experience, and thus our collective memories. Eventually, we will all have been here before. 

Grear Patterson (b. 1988) in Redding, CT. Solo exhibitions include Forest Theatre, The American Academy (Rome, Italy); Duck Test, Ellis King, Dublin, Ireland; He has been included in group shows at Spovieri, London, England; Total Projects, Athens, Greece; Frank Pictures Gallery, Santa Monica, CA; Steven Kasher Gallery, New York, NY; Galerie Olivier Robert, Paris, France. The artist lives and works in New York.