Richard Patterson

Richard Patterson (b. 1963, Leatherhead, United Kingdom) is a British painter and a leading figure of England’s Young British Artist movement, who currently resides in Dallas, Texas. Working in a style the artist describes as ‘hyperabstraction,’ Patterson draws from a wide range of art-historical, cultural, and personal references to create his paintings. These feature exaggerated, sharply delineated abstract strokes, which he sometimes sets against scenes of photorealist precision, and elsewhere uses alone in compositions whose dynamism recalls that of Abstract Expressionism. The artist knowingly employs a battery of techniques, genres and media: Self-portraiture, photography, and painterly streaks and smudges, converge in works that reveal the inherently political nature of craft and making.

A pioneer of the YBAs, Patterson was included in the 1988 exhibition ‘Freeze’ organised by artist Damien Hirst, which catalyzed the group’s import in the international art world. After exhibiting widely in London for more than two decades, he was introduced to the Dallas art scene during his 2000 solo exhibition at the Dallas Museum of Art and has lived and worked there since 2004.