Artist’s Statement

The human figure in art has been and always will be a fertile ground for artist’s images and interpretations. The nude in painting in not just a painted form, but like an actor, he speaks volumes about the artist’s philosophy and the attitudes of our time. I believe that the nude must be painted in the present time, because this affirms the value of our lives, the meaning of our existence. The viewer sees the human figure in painted form, and relates to it, and feels himself, somehow, commemorated. We value painting and fine art very highly in this society. To paint the contemporary nude and to represent the contemporary world is to proclaim the value of humanity and the world itself.

Patricia Watwood has studied painting at the Water Street Atelier, under Jacob Collins, and also under Ted Seth Jacobs at Ecole Albert Defois. She has her MFA from New York Academy of Art. Watwood did her undergraduate studies in Theatre Design, and has worked in scenic design and painting in regional theatres and in television.

Watwood has exhibited in group and solo shows in New York, Paris, Houston, San Francisco and Long Island. Her work is represented by Hirschl & Adler Galleries, NY; and John Pence Gallery in San Francisco. Her figurative paintings have been included in several museum shows, including “Slow Painting,” at the Oglethorpe Museum; “The Great American Nude;” at the Bruce Museum of Arts and Sciences; and in “Representing Representation VI,” at the Arnot Museum.

Watwood also does portrait commissions. Her recent projects include a portrait of the astronomer Cecelia Payne-Gaposchkin for the Faculty Hall at Harvard University, and the journalist and anti-lynching campaigner Ida B. Wells for the Kennedy School of Government. She has also painted the former Mayor of St. Louis, Clarence Harmon, for the St. Louis City Hall.

In addition to painting, Watwood has been an instructor at the Water Street Atelier in DUMBO, Brooklyn. She also lectures at the annual Portrait Society of America Conferences, and at Studio Incamminati in Philadelphia.

In April 2004, Watwood joined 13 other young representational painters on a painting excursion to the Forbes Family’s Old Battersea residence in London. American Artist Magazine and Mr. Christopher Forbes hosted the trip.