NYAB Event - Pat Rocha Exhibition

Pat Rocha Exhibition

Joshua Liner Gallery

This event has ended.

Across this series of twelve oil-on-canvas paintings, Rocha presents a realist vision of Midwestern rural and small-town life, yet one tinged with nostalgia, spiritualism, ghosts, and the skewed perspective of childhood. His richly scumbled oils collapse multiple time frames into a single lush image, often expressing a wistful humor. Rocha uses a trompe l’oeil technique of blurred backgrounds and fine-edged, foregrounded figures to suggest a “cut and paste” reality. The picture plane is a surface on which to manipulate memory and desire—Rocha’s painterly form of wish fulfillment.

Departure, the painting that gives the show its title, depicts three figures from successive generations, each distinguished by the era of their clothing. Though gathered in the same forest locale, each figure appears to exist in a different dimension—the old man sharp and clearly lit, the young woman transparent and barely there, the older woman in sepia, like an old photograph. These shifting styles of representation overlay Rocha’s visual narratives with mystery and embody the artist’s interest in nostalgia, the supernatural, and the surreal.

Other works depict a range of Midwestern experience, from a typical 1950s den in Jet Set to the hardscrabble, prairie existence of Kansas Death Trip. In all, Rocha draws on vivid childhood memories, including haunted houses, devastating tornadoes, and growing up with ten siblings, most of whom practice artmaking in some form.

As the artist notes, “My interest in human nature and the drama of living compels me to paint. Sometimes when I’m looking at an old photograph, I’ll stare at the person in the photo and imagine myself in the same room. It’s impossible for me to paint a portrait without having a story to tell behind it. When the story hits me, I’ll look for additional pictures to accommodate the central theme. Then the painting begins to take on a life of its own.”