r c pATTERSON

He is a Provincetown-based artist working in painting, photography, mixed media, and quilt-making, blending personal memory with formal experimentation. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, and studied at the Art Students League in the late ’70s into the mid-’80s. Eventually, he earned his BFA from the College of Santa Fe. He has always been drawn to artists like Rothko and Jasper Johns, not necessarily as direct influences, but because of how they worked with layers and presence. That idea of layering of memory, color, and shape is at the core of what he does.

Since 2014, he has lived and worked at the Foley House in Provincetown, which is a congregate living space for folks living with HIV or AIDS. His room is a sewing space, a painting studio, and a bedroom all in one. It is where he makes everything from mixed-media works to quilts, and no two pieces ever feel quite finished. That is part of the process.

In 2021, he had a solo show of his quilts at the Provincetown Commons. He is represented by Gallery 411, and over the years he has also shown paintings, worked in galleries, cleaned houses, and sold ferry tickets, all of which is part of the same creative life. These days, he spends mornings taking photos by the waterfront near St. Mary’s before the town gets too busy. He thinks of it as a moment of meditation, a quiet time to see clearly before he gets back to the work.