Ebony G. Patterson

Ebony G. Patterson’s lush installations, tapestries, and mixed-media works are both sobering and brilliantly seductive. Her use of portraiture, vibrant colors, bright patterns, and heavy embellishments—floral forms, beads, glitter, lace, and costume jewelry, for example—entice even from a distance. Yet darker subject matter lurks beneath these details: Patterson’s interests and inspirations reside in issues of gender inequality, colonialism’s violent legacies, systemic violence, and trauma at large. Patterson completed her BFA in painting at the Edna Manley College of Visual and Performing Arts in her native Jamaica and received her MFA in printmaking and drawing from the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts in 2006. Since then, she has enjoyed solo shows at the Studio Museum in Harlem, Pérez Art Museum Miami, and the Baltimore Museum of Art, among other institutions. Her work has been acquired by numerous institutions including the Studio Museum in Harlem, Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.