HALSEY MCKAY GALLERY

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OVERVIEW | CV | PRESS | GALLERY EXHIBITIONS

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The Lost Horizon is a suite of Patrick Brennan’s ongoing Drifter paintings made available in the online viewing room from August 30 – October 10. Begun in 2016, the series serves as a way for the artist to create work while living nomadically. Each of these gem-like paintings acts as a chapter in a long running story composed with materials carried between Ithaca, Brooklyn, Atlanta, London, Ballyvaughn, Ireland and Bahrain where the artist was a guest of the US Embassy. Like others use a sketchbook, Brennan makes small-scale paintings that act as records of all the places and situations he finds himself in.  Made with gouache, acrylic, ink, collage, wood, gesso board and canvas panels, Brennan’s materials become characters in the dream like spaces depicted on their travel-wary surfaces. Brennan has long ignored notions of the polished painting or style in favor of the journey over the outcome in his practice. The Drifters grant insight to his signature free-form approach. The Lost Horizon is accompanied with text by Gianna Commito and a conversation with Matthew Day Jackson.

This viewing room is now closed. For currently available work please contact info@halseymckay.com or click INQUIRE.

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GIANNA COMMITO on PATRICK BRENNAN

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Patrick Brennan’s paintings allow me to finally write about Japanese beach trash. 

Many years ago, long before cell phones and translation apps and social media afforded us windows into every corner of the world, I visited Japan for the first time. I’d been to lots of other countries, but none where the language and text were so fundamentally different from my own. You use a different set of cognitive skills when visiting a place where you don’t completely understand anything that’s going on around you. Everything that you’re reading, seeing, hearing, and eating is abstract. Wandering in a market or riding a train or ordering food, you are required to rely on context and to trust in a shared visual language. What’s a snack, what’s a beauty product? Do color and texture and scale provide all the information you need to know the difference? Can you name the thing you are seeing?

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On that same trip I visited a beach on the island of Kyushu, too. Like every shore, it was peppered with beach trash tucked among the rocks and shells. Imagine all that foreign, washed up ephemera  (which was only semi-recognizable before and now lacks even a whiff of context) after being tossed by the waves and baked in the sun, faded and softened and cracked, edges rounded, encroached upon by barnacles and algae and arthropods. Now tell me what you’re looking at!

These dual acts of defamiliarization—of not being able to comprehend words or text and relying solely on visual language to decipher meaning, then having those cues further abstracted by the elements–allow for one to move through a space as though moving through a painting. Every color, material, and mark has something at stake. Combinations of formal components transcend the sum of their parts to eventually (maybe!) provide clarity.

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Patrick Brennan’s paintings share this pleasure of disorientation and discovery. Mixed media and collage disrupt what we think we are seeing.  A shadow shifts and adds another color to the surface, flipping illusionistic space into actual dimension. A delicate star reorganizes into a stack of popsicle sticks, heavy with their own associations. Mundane materials are endlessly reconfigured and recontextualized, shifting between found object and constructed image.  In each rectangle, Patrick creates a novel space with its own language and subsequent gaps in translation. What a wonderful place to feel lost.

– Gianna Commito

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A CONVERSATION BETWEEN OLD FRIENDS:

MATTHEW DAY JACKSON &  PATRICK BRENNAN 

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Matthew Day Jackson: I have known you for a long time now and I have always respected your determination that is coupled with a real sweetness that softens the sharp edges of total dedication and a sort of monastic intensity. You carry this in you like few others I know and even though you have had a fairly nomadic lifestyle the last several years you are producing some of your best work yet. To begin, I love how in some cases, the paintings have become semi-architectural as if to be longing for a fixed location or in the case of “Life-Raft” the vehicle seems to be more of a temple to enter rather than being made to flee. How did this work come to be and I ask because I want to dig into what I know of as the Drifter Paintings.

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Patrick Brennan: First off, thank you so much for the kindness and always digging what I make. I often talk about you buying the first painting I ever sold. I was so psyched! For one, I could pay my rent that month, and it also felt right to sell it to another artist. That was over 13 years ago now, but I still hold on to the idea that I want to make work that other artists will wonder about, ask questions about, and believe in.

Life Raft was a product of the pandemic. I quarantined in a small cottage in Freeville, NY, and made an entire show based around this large multi-media sculpture. I worked on it outdoors and it evolved very organically and with an almost possessed approach to materials, color and scale. I used heavily saturated, unearthly colors next to each other to create the specific feeling of danger and a nod toward hope.

I’m very interested in you seeing it as “unable to flee”.  It’s so great because that is how life felt. Like we all were, I was trying to make art and still figure out how the hell I was going to break free from all the isolation and quiet I found myself surrounded by. In the end it did become almost a monument, or a temple as you say, because it was a true marker of time and hours spent working. It led to some great paintings and a show I was super proud to return to NYC with.

The Drifter Paintings I’m making now are a direct reaction to that process. My goal is to always make art by any means possible and these are just that. They are all small to medium in scale and made in non-studio environments. There is a magic that happens in the studio – it’s very focused and efficient because time is precious in there. This work is what happens in between. I never stop thinking of ways to make something anywhere I travel or end up, for whatever reason. I love that at the core of the Drifter Paintings is that I don’t stop being an artist when I’m not in the studio. My goal is to be one at all times.

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MDJ: I didn’t realize I was the first! Yay me! In moving, I know that I carry what I need inside me. This is the same for you and an achievement in your work is an authenticity that is also somehow devoid of the concept of authorship or even concerned with it. Your drive to be an artist seems to be about ART in general. Is that a fair assessment?

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PB: Absolutely! Concept of authorship is such a weird thing to think about…

An artwork is its own thing and is a wonder. I am open to the openness of the situation. Rather than try to fend off the inevitable appearance of allusion I welcome it. My paintings frequently set people on edge, if that chaos unnerves, then so be it. The point is not trickery; I am sincere and straightforward. 

Ultimately it’s about making and looking and not at all about conclusions. I explore and investigate every idea that crosses my path, stumbling into chance and wonder and looking for unexpected outcomes. The paintings are expressive but also have a great deal of anxiety and slowness to them.

I am a nomadic drifter moving through the world with the constant need to leave a trail. The rest is DIY, visual, and urgent. I like the content to buried so deep into the execution and presentation of the work that you almost might have to “live forever” to see everything. I strive for that impossibility. My paintings and sculptures depict a vast and complicated space with intimate openings, windows and portals crammed with visual buzz.

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MDJ: It’s funny thinking about living forever in order to see everything in relationship to our current moment of paying attention to digital art (for all the wrong reasons I might add) and that much of what appears in that realm is generated from almost nothing. In terms of painting, there is a similar thing that happens in allowing so many inspirations and ideas into a space so densely occupied with history. As soon as a mark is made there is a trace to a vast array of reference and to certain regard, traps and holes that frequently get stepped into. I see your work functioning in a sort of a-historical realm but where do you see your predecessors? Do you align with a certain strain of this history?

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PB: It’s really interesting because I’m a huge fan of art.

As a teacher, I’m also very closely connected to its history as well as the importance of the contemporary and paying attention to what is happening right now. That said, being away from NYC for the last couple years has shown me the way of the naive by design studio practice. I was able to tap into ideas that were coming straight from a place of drawing, reading, and long contemplation – almost selfishly delving into my ideas and process. Maybe not a long-term strategy, but I learned a lot about what I want to make without looking at other art for inspiration.

Now that I’m back in the city full time, I’m overwhelmed and truly excited by seeing so much good work. I’m so into Niki de Saint Phalle at PS1 right now! Andrea Marie Breiling at Broadway, and Zak Prekop at Essex Street are just a couple knockout shows I recently saw. So yes, there are traps and holes in too much paying attention to what came before and what’s in the works, but it’s still totally inspiring to be in New York and have it all at your fingertips.

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MDJ: But, where do the drawings come from? Whose bones are knocking around in there? Also, a lot of artists have been “nomadic”…are there any artists that you couldn’t be without?

PB: oh man those bones you speak of haunt me. I draw constantly and especially early in the morning. I’m such a drawer, and the difference between painting and drawing has always been a challenge for me. The drawing process, which is really freeing is the backbone of successful painting.

Without listing all of my hero’s here (and there are many) I’d like to reference Rauschenberg very specifically. Aesthetically we are far apart but my interest in making something from what is at hand that talks to me daily comes from him and his studio mojo. He said “painting is like the real world, when its made out of the real world”.

Right now I’m super into Nam June Paik, Rebecca Morris, Ellen Berkenblit, Amy Sillman, Samara Golden, Robert Altman, Kenneth Anger, Jack Whitten, John Giorno, Nicole Eisenman and many more.

I think we are in such an exciting moment in art. It’s been a fucked year and still artists are making, a lot actually. Studios are buzzing because there is a lot built up inside and its a great time to tap into that and keep history at a distance.

 

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MDJ: I agree with everything you say especially about Bob, he is an inspiration for me as well. I don’t agree however that we should keep history at a distance. I think that the confrontation with our history is the very thing that is making this moment. More than ever I think we need to look deeply into all aspects and see where our reflection might surface and deal with that. In painting you can’t get away from this. Why would you want to?

PB: I agree with you and use the word distance for that reason… I don’t think we should forget history or even not celebrate it some. I’m just thinking of learning about, seeing, and making art, all full of so much potential to be something new and alive!

I love this idea of the reflection you’re talking about. That’s it! That’s the most important thing we can take from this kind of investigation. Its all about failure and triumph and like it or not we need to risk both, and really put it on the line. Its really hard sometimes, I just want to fall into these little worlds I make up, but I am obligated to welcome the viewer to live in the paintings they are looking at as well. So in the end we are all considering our reflection and how and where that can surface.

The best thing for me about getting to be an artist is that what I’m responsible for is all my doing. Processing the world around me and figuring out how to deal with it is paramount, but then I get to redefine it and make a thing of wonder as my way of taking on that responsibility.

This is at the core of my experience as a learner and as a painter. I’ve never been very comfortable in the world and I know to expect the unexpected. This is why I’m so invested in abstraction. I want to create a language that is something never mundane or boring. Again something NEW and ALIVE!

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MDJ: Are you talking to yourself, anyone who will listen, someone imagined, someone real or no one? I ask in reference to making something “NEW and ALIVE” or the idea of “taking responsibility”.

PB: I’m always trying to talk to anyone who will listen. As an artist that’s my charge, to make something that has a sense of wonder and doesn’t give up on its viewer, or presume them uninterested.

I’ve wanted to be an artist for as long as I can remember and it gives me life. This is why I feel a responsibility for it and where it ends up. I’m excited by the idea that my work can live in the world after it leaves my studio and have many meanings to people over time. I want the work to change often and mean new things to people over time…

Awhile ago I had a collector tell me that a friend came over and was having a hard time with a large painting of mine the collector had hanging. Then about a week later this friend called the collector to tell him he couldn’t stop thinking about the painting all week and wants to come back and see it again. I love that, its like the work keeps living and breathing and it earns any attention paid to it, good and bad. What I look for in an art experience is a feeling, a force and some danger. This goes both ways, for the artist and the viewer.

I want to question traditionally perceived ideas of the sublime. In my work the viewer experiences a series of choices and materials that appear chaotic. The content is buried. There is no fast read or easy way to formulate what each painting is about. This gives the viewer time to look, and space to engage.

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MDJ: The painting is a meeting place, but also it gives permission to look. There is tangible power in this. However, we live in a world where almost everything is trying to be seen. Do you think your paintings care if they are seen or do you think they good know that they have a lot to give? Does the painting do what it does in the crate or does it need the viewer to do its thing?

PB: My paintings care very much about being seen. Like I was mentioning before it’s a must, so that it has a chance to introduce itself over and over again.

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Patrick Brennan was born in Syracuse, NY and currently lives and works in New York City. Recent solo exhibitions have been at Cornell University Ithaca, NY;  Halsey McKay, East Hampton; Romer Young Gallery, San Francisco; Essex Flowers, New York; as well as group shows at MOMA / PS1, Galerie Lelong, Safe Gallery, Jack Hanley Gallery, Nicole Klagsbrun, Artists Space, Monya Rowe Gallery, Zieher Smith, Edward Thorpe, and Asya Geisberg Gallery, New York; Cooper Cole, Toronto; and V1, Copenhagen, Denmark. He is recipient of the NYFA fellowship in painting, was a founding member of Essex Flowers in New York City, and has been a visiting artist and lecturer to the Cornell University, US Embassy in Bahrain, Alfred University, Bennington College and others. Brennan is represented by Halsey McKay Gallery.

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