ART
Michael Patterson-Carver |
Written 30 January |
Tuesday 15 December, 11:00Galerie Laurent Godin, 75003 [map]Michael Patterson Carver
Michael Patterson-Carver was born in Chicago in 1958. His mother’s heroin addiction led to estrangement from her family and Michael was raised by an adoptive family. As a result, one of the artist’s formative childhood memories is of attending an African-American church during the civil rights struggle. Patterson-Carver has since been a lifelong activist, working for various causes ranging from environmental protection to social justice.
Michael Patterson-Carver’s drawings are a candid and direct look at the political realm, dividing into two distinct genres: those that represent ordinary men and woman, and others that represent well-known world leaders and power mongers. In the first genre, the recent “protest” drawings presented at the exhibition depict marchers with signs that read messages as “WE NEED WORK”. Each piece is titled after an American city, as if to emphasise the breadth and urgency of the problem. While some of the drawings show dark humour, there is an underlying optimism to the work. The ordinary people represented are gently smiling, working for change through direct action and demonstration, their collective mass filling the picture plane, topped by placards voicing their demands, hopes and desires.
Other drawings illustrate Nazis, Klansmen, robber barons and terrorists meeting current day political leaders, and depict allegorical narratives, complex conspiracy theories and political satire. They address current and historical struggles and in this way exhibit both ongoing themes of cultural and political repression and the hypocrisy of past and present injustices. Depicting battles for inalienable rights that we often take for granted, Patterson-Carver’s work is a call to action. In the words of the artist “in order to succeed at anything the first step you must take is to BELIEVE. This is the reason that everyone at my demonstration is smiling- they are confident of success. The future is not something that just happens to us- we are in the act of creating it as you read this. Let’s make it a good one!”
