Your Ah Haa Moment: Painter Ron Patterson for Art Walk

01 Mar Your Ah Haa Moment: Painter Ron Patterson for Art Walk

Sponsored by the Telluride Council for the Arts and Humanities, the last First Thursday Art Walk of the winter season 2011 happens this Thursday, March 3. At the Ah Haa School for the Arts, 300 South Townsend, the spotlight is on Telluride local, painter Ron Patterson and his show, "Black & White in Colors."

Anyone who looks at a Patterson image is first struck by the riot of color on canvas. But color is not the point. Color is in the service of what is the point: relationships. Relationships with pets, with the natural world, with others. And because the relationships Ron depicts tend to be joyful, so are the colors: reds, purples, yellows and oranges dominate, lifting the more somber blues and restful greens.

"It's not that I want to paint a portrait of Bud and Betty or Rex and Fluffy as much as I want to portray the essence of a certain special moment. Most of my people don't have faces, because people as a whole seem to love blindly."

Blank faces are also invitations to we viewers to fill in the blanks, and so personalize Ron's painting. His animals, however, are a whole different story.

"Unlike my people, my animals always have faces because I feel animals do not share the blind love of humans. Loyalty, yes. Pretense of hope for love, yes. Blind love, no. Animals see right through the human animal to his soul."

Ron Patterson studied art at the Central Academy of Art in Cincinnati, Ohio under the distinguished painter of Western Art, Jackson Grey Story. In addition to being a talented painter, Ron is a sought after commercial artist, graphic designer and illustrator. 

Why is his show called "Black and White in Colors"?

"Every canvas I do starts out as stark white or deep black. I then sketch black or white lines on to the surface before the black and white disappears and the color takes over. I do not use black anywhere in my paintings. I don't even own a tube of black."

Upbeat worlds without black. How's that for optimism?