Patrick Pearson is an award-winning artist painting powerful and immersive abstracts, mainly inspired by tree-bark patterns and wild creatures, and thickly textured landscapes or seascapes in oils, all of which explore the connections between humankind and the natural world. Winner of the Mark Butler Art Prize 2021 and Finalist in the Adelaide Parklands Art Prize 2023, the artist draws inspiration from cave art, traditional African mask design, the Impressionist and Cubist schools, and from the patterns in nature. In his paintings, what initially appears abstract frequently suggests hidden forms – birds, extinct or living animals, and spirit or human shapes. The deeper you look, the more you see.
Patrick’s love affair with painting the natural world – especially seas and trees – began when he was a child, and his artworks address the crises of old-growth forest loss and the extinction of wild species. There is a deeply felt personal connection between the artist and the wilder world that shelters our threatened creatures – recovering after brain surgery in 2009 for a large tumour, he found solace and strength in woods and beaches. His work is held in numerous private collections internationally.