Tim Patrick: Between the shadow and the light

See Tim Patrick's End of Residency Show Preview: "Between the shadow and the light". The show preview is exhibited in an outdoor environment allowing for safe social distancing.

Exploring the significance of place, Artist in Residence Tim Patrick exhibits paintings and drawings made during his residency at Trinity Buoy Wharf, alongside work made in 2020 entire. Moving between the domestic and interior space to the energy and dynamism of Trinity Buoy Wharf, the exhibition looks at the relationship with place, and our shared experience of the spaces closest to us.

Before you head out:

• Booking: not required

What are your thoughts about Trinity Buoy Wharf and the Artist in Residence opportunity?

My time at Trinity Buoy Wharf has brought a new perspective to my painting; being around the energy and vitality of the site drew me out amongst the people, painting outside and discovering the place over time. The opportunity to find new subjects amongst the unfamiliar, helped me understand just what motivates me in painting - what am I seeking to express. Having spent so much time exploring the places closest to me, compelled to paint the intimate and domestic, being in a place with an entirely different dynamic was such an exciting opportunity, and helped me find new subjects for painting in the unexpected, everyday corners of life. The unique mix of activities, joined with the shapes and diversity of spaces at the Wharf, provided a subject that gave more and more as time passed, and the changing light revealed new facets to the place.

So much of my work revolves around my relationship with place - 2020 has for myself and so many been about the spaces we live and move through - the places closest to us, whether out of choice or otherwise. It has often been for me, the touchstone and motivation for painting - seeing a familiar changed throughout the day by light, drawn to paint the living room, the bed, the light through a curtain - all subjects which, seemingly overlooked, become when refracted through paint, elevated and transformed.

Moving amongst the containers, the business, and cafe and people at the Wharf, I became drawn to the aspects and moments of the place in repose - the gaps between the activity. There is something about the spaces once busy in the day that, when quietened at night, feel unseen, untapped; when the light would change and the familiar shapes would be sculpted anew in shadow. It seemed in this way, the space enclosed you, yielding itself to painting more readily. The intimate yet expansive, the familiar transfigured to the newly discovered...

Reflecting on my experience of the Wharf, I am drawn to ask what it is to live in relation to a place? Where, in the times of day, of activity and absence, can you find its true face? It is the spaces between activity that most reflects my experience of Trinity Buoy Wharf - the containers at night, the cafe after hours, the view from the studio window... These were all the places and aspects which for me, express the energy and vitality of the place, and yet find an angle in which I can repose - where the subject rhymes with the quiet I sought, whilst remaining wholly itself.

Interspersed with lockdowns and tier changes, my experience of the residency grew, my housemates mediating my understanding of the place, and becoming part of the painting. Amongst the containers, overlooked corners and empty moments, I found myself painting again the places closest to me. Moving from the domesticity of my home interior to Trinity Buoy Wharf, beat out a path in painting and a narrative that extended from the site of the residency, to the spirit of my experience of it.

It struck me that whilst having initial expectations of the paintings I would make, being led by looking, finding a poise of openness and receptivity, allowed me to be motivated by encounter with place; to seek a thread that ran through the paintings, moving between the subjects, whether of Wharf life or in the domesticity that bookended the day. Being immersed in the light and colours of an environment, excavating the colours from life, and discovering the particulars and subtleties of a place, is what most excited me painting amongst the life and character of Trinity Buoy Wharf, and what I hope extends to the viewer also.