From the Poets Garden 2 – 3 pieces

Patricia Wilson-Adams

My sculpture grew from working with artist’s books and realising that I did not like that a viewer could only access one page when a work is exhibited. I then began deconstructing prints to form small sculptures and later I began working on larger pieces dictated by available materials. This has become an overriding practice where I work between large scale installations and more intimate works which emphasise repetition in a minimalist tradition.  I have been a practicing artist, an educator and writer for a long time.

My work focuses on issues pertaining to the environment, cultural landscapes and land usage and is based philosophically on a study of Ecophenomenology.  My work could be classified as Post-Minimalist in that it eliminates the descriptive, excludes the pictorial, narrative and the fictive, with a focus on essential form and the reductive.  My work centres around a sense of loss – loss of many close to me, loss of environment and loss of place.  I work in sculpture, installation and print media.

Born: Tamworth NSW.  Education: National Art School, Sydney – Atelier 17, Paris with French Government scholarship – MFA College of Fine Art, University of NSW. I have worked in many print workshops and have held residencies all over the world – USA, Japan, UK and Australia the most recent being in Alice Springs at Watch This Space, where I made a work that focused on a disused cemetery in the town – A new rebus for loss.

Exhibitions

I have exhibited prints and sculpture in many major regional galleries – Tamworth Regional Art Gallery, Maitland Regional Art Gallery, Moree Plains Art Gallery, Manning Regional Art Gallery, Mackay Art Space, Museum of Art and Culture, Lake Macquarie and New England Regional Art Museum. I have also been represented in many prize exhibitions including Gosford, Mackay Art Space and Burnie. The exhibition, stain me with the intensity of black at Newcastle Art Gallery was a significant survey exhibition curated by James Collis, a major component of which was sculpture.

Teaching

I have made an important contribution to education at The University of Newcastle where I taught Printmaking, Drawing and Sculpture electives. I was supervisor to many PhD and MFA candidates. I have curated exhibitions, I have edited catalogues and I have written many catalogue essays including Tracing Site, Newcastle Museum, Let all the birds fly: the hybrid print at Maitland Regional Art Gallery and more recently an essay for Convergent: the hybrid print Kandos, NSW. I live and work at Lake Macquarie on Awabakal land.

Prizes

2017 Burnie Print Prize for a work that was a hybrid print/sculpture piece. 2021 Sculpture on the farm for a work in timber.