Statement

My mixed media paintings begin with images abstracted from natural forms such as cells, bacteria, viruses, seed pods, and plants. These images are starting points for my language of forms.

These forms are abstracted and put together into “systems” which seem sometimes to be on a microscopic level, other times on a bodily level, and yet other times on a galactic level.

I am interested in apparent contradictions in life. My pictures pit clarity versus obscurity, familiarity versus strangeness, repulsion versus attraction, humor versus tragedy. These opposing forces represent for me the essence of being human; we are heroic and we are degenerate. My aim is to marry beauty and deformity, pleasure and fear.

These pictures embrace the intrinsic beauty found in the natural world. They also address the fears and anxieties that pervade our time.
 

– Patricia Hagen