Artist: Ebony G. Patterson
Title: …as the garden secrets a swarm of monarchs feast. ..a john crow awaits a carcass’ fall while scavengers gather to feast below, as we dig between the cuts…below the leaves…beneath the soil, 2019
Medium: Digital print on archival watercolor paper with hand-cut and torn elements, fabric, poster board, acrylic gel medium
Location: Miami Beach Convention Center, East Lobby
Miami Beach Legacy Art Purchase (2019)
As announced on November 4, 2019, the City of Miami Beach launched the Legacy Purchase Program, a collaboration with Art Basel Miami Beach, and under the direction of the City’s Art in Public Places (“AiPP”) committee whereby the City would set out to purchase a work of art from contingency funds from the AiPP collection within the Miami Beach Convention Center campus. The goal of the program is to strengthen the connection between the City of Miami Beach, the residents and Art Basel Miami Beach by allowing the residents to be a part of the curatorial process of our public art collection, while broadening our dedication to acquiring meaningful public art and expanding our relationship with Art Basel by enhancing our community engagement in the annual event.
Winner of the inaugural Miami Beach Legacy Purchase Program, Ebony G. Patterson is a Jamaican visual artist and is represented by the Monique Meloche Gallery in Chicago. She holds a Master of Fine Arts from Sam Fox College of Design and Visual Arts. Her work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Jamaica, the United States, and abroad including the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Baltimore Museum of Art, Nuit Blanche Toronto, and the Hales Gallery in New York City to name a few.
Known for her drawings, tapestries, videos, sculptures and installations that involve surfaces layered with flowers, glitter, lace and beads, Ms. Patterson’s works investigate forms of embellishment as they relate to youth culture within disenfranchised communities. Her neo-baroque works address violence, masculinity, “bling,” visibility and invisibility within the post-colonial context of her native Jamaica and within black youth culture globally. The references to Carnival in Patterson’s use of beads, plastic ornaments, and reflective materials reflect her interest in mining international aesthetics in a practice that is a race against time, as Patterson captures, mourns, and glorifies the passing of too many lives.
