“I am creating imagined, disordered spaces out of these perfectly ordered, often highly aestheticized rooms, basically turning a real space that has been created to be useful and legible into a nonsensical, defamiliarized space.”
~ Dane Patterson

Dane Patterson, Hypothetical Arrangement for the Home of Aerin Lauder #1, 2014

Dane Patterson is celebrated for his graphite drawings on paper that depict meticulously arranged rooms of hypothetical households. Elaborating on the tradition of still life, Patterson builds his hyper-realistic compositions from a foundation of photographs taken either by him when visiting grand historical homes or taken from highly-aestheticized interior design catalogues. The artist’s imagined scenes are structured around real rooms belonging to the homes of real people, including Aerin Lauder, granddaughter of legendary businesswoman Estée Lauder. In an ironic twist, even though Patterson’s sources purport to capture the spirit of the house-owner through their aesthetic taste, the artist’s bizarre compositions eliminate the human presence and instead draw energy from the spirit of the still life within.

Using these carefully constructed, pre-existing domestic spaces as a stage, the artist manipulates the setting by re-arranging the objects and placing them in unanticipated situations. Patterson’s hypothetical arrangements highlight the banality of domestic structures by re-assembling their constituents, the household objects, into scenarios that defy their usual function. In this world, why shouldn’t a chair seat another chair? Why shouldn’t a rug be pinned to the wall as decoration? When the laws are changed and definitions are re-evaluated, nonsense can then begin to make sense.

Dane Patterson was born in Columbus, Indiana in 1978. He graduated from IUPUI Herron School of Art in Indianapolis in 2002 and pursued a M.F.A. from School of Visual Arts in New York. His awards and distinctions include the Artist Fellowship in Drawing, Printmaking and Book Arts by New York Foundation for Arts (2009), and the MacDowell Colony Residency and Fellowship (2010). Dane Patterson has participated in numerous exhibitions including Galerie Bertrand & Gruner in Geneva, The Proposition Gallery and Exit Art in New York City, and Gallery 32 in London. The artist lives and works in New York City, USA.

Exhibition: Dane Patterson: Hypothetical Arrangements
Dates: 9 October – 14 November 2014
Venue: Third Floor – Art Plural Gallery, 38 Armenian Street, Singapore
Hours: Mon – Sat 11am to 7pm (Closed on Sundays and Public Holidays)
Info: www.artpluralgallery.com