The Communique

Issue date: 10/25/07 Section: A&E

Media Credit: Henry Kaufmann This Joeseph Patrick original portrait along with several others are currently in display in the Iowa Hall Art Gallery.

Media Credit: Henry Kaufmann

"Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter."

-Oscar Wilde



Currently the "Heads from Life" exhibit by Joseph Patrick is on display in the Iowa Hall Art Gallery. The exhibit displays many mixed media portraits that have taken a fresh look at the way a portrait is created.

Patrick was born and raised on a farm in South Carolina. He went to the University of Georgia in Athens as an art major and participated in the student produced opera. From there he went to the University of Colorado in Boulder. He met his wife in a painting class and they married in 1961. Then in 1965 he began working at the University of Iowa and retired in 2004.

"I miss the rejuvenation that students provide their elders without even trying. Besides, I miss sharing hints and ideas with students," Patrick said.

Unlike many portraits, Patrick's use of various media and color make each image unique and successfully separates each portrait from the others. Each portrait is of a close friend, student, colleague or neighbor.

Each portrait was made quickly, directly from the model in as many drawings as time allowed. The personality of the artist and the subject is apparent through this technique. Every portrait displays each person in a way that reveals a little of who they are and how Patrick sees them.

"I like it when I happen onto making a likeness of my subject but I am more inspired by something else that happens in the process," Patrick said.

When creating his images Patrick said something special happens, something even he has trouble describing. "Call it electricity, charm, longing, alchemy, magic, humor, pathos, empathy, sympathy, sexual attraction, spiritual connection...whatever it takes to find the give-and-take between me and the model," he said.

Patrick said that each night he and his wife sit in the kitchen and he reads to her. Recently he read that Leonardo Da Vinci once described the portrait as a vehicle to express the motions of the mind. "That confirmed a belief that I have long held and tried to live up to in making my drawings of heads," Patrick said.

Patrick will be at Kirkwood next week meeting with classes to discuss "Heads from Life." The exhibit will remain on display until Nov. 2.

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