Photographer Patrick Collier
Patrick Collier has been making art for about 35 years, and has numerous exhibits and shows to his credit. He also writes poetry, and is a…
Patrick Collier has been making art for about 35 years, and has numerous exhibits and shows to his credit. He also writes poetry, and is a contributor to Oregon Arts Watch orartswatch.org. From 1998–2000, he and his wife ran the Chicago gallery bona fide. The gallery received critical acclaim with reviews in Art in America, Frieze and the now defunct Midwest art magazine New Art Examiner.
Collier says of himself: “I’m one of those photographer types who carry the conceit of not really being a photographer. Rather, I prefer to think of myself as an artist who is using a camera for the time being. Buried deep within my tumblr page are examples of how I exhibit my photographs. In short, I combine the photos you typically see on that page with photos I take of snippets of text I am reading. (The spacing on the page sometimes creates little framed segments of 2 to 4 lines of text, which I shoot and crop. They are called “Gists” on my website.) I will also sometimes use drawings and sculpture in the same installation. I’d like to think of these combinations as visual poems.”
“Photos of the things I see on the street and placed in stand-alone projects are divided them into two categories. ‘Deadpan’ are the rather symmetrical, extremely formal, crowd-pleasing photos. The others I call Sidetracked, as the scenes catch my eye when shooting — and some time afterwards they make it into this category.”
Many of Collier’s photographic works explore the interplay of textures, patterns and forms, as well as color. The incidental markings on pavement or walls, and discovered visual ironies are also among his strengths.
To see more examples of Patrick Collier’s work, visit his website www.patrickcollier.com , or his tumblr site http://twentymileperimeter.tumblr.com/
Originally published at wobnebmagazine.com on July 22, 2016.