About

Born in Baltimore, Maryland - where crooks, creatives and the slightly strange provided the background hum. I worked for a time as a photographer with an alternative newspaper in Baltimore where the art director gave me freedom to just ‘try things out’. I studied art and photography at Towson University and the Maryland Institute College of Art and then at Central Saint Martins in London.

My work has at it’s core an expansive sense of play, with experimentation and restless variety jumping in. I am looking for the moment when something coheres but then opens, and sets me off - away from the usual decisions and directions.

Using material resources - clay, wood, glass, paper, photographs and paint - I enjoy using leftover scraps or found materials to conjure new forms. Seeking some sort of visual harmony that feels to be just there, waiting to speak. Often there is loads of playful mess and a disheartening halt to action - begin again.

This is what helps me to evolve new meanings, new conversations, new combinations and unions. It feels (comically) like it takes courage to do this and face my practice every day - to carry on that never-finished conversation between what is and what could be.

Please email or DM me with queries and do have a look at these feeds for additional strands of work…

www.flickr.com/photos/patricklears

https://vimeo.com/user4848926