Bio

Patricia Canney is a Minneapolis artist who received her BA from the University of Minnesota with a degree in Studio Art. She paints the places and people from her personal history and experience… mostly garments, interiors, and still life. The garment paintings evolved from store fronts, tailors’ work rooms, dressmakers’ studios, ballet and theater costumes. The restaurant interiors are reminiscent of the small town cafe her parents owned. The dresses – from playing “dress up”…the fabric, sewing and design from childhood times.

Statement

“Figurative without the figure” It is how I describe the paintings of dresses, garments, shoes, chairs, interiors and still lifes.

I played dress-up…with a trunk of old clothes, a needle, thread, fabric and sewing machine or with paper and patterns, colors and scissors. It’s what I do still. It’s what I love.

I am intrigued by dresses, garments, shoes, objects of life as well as the spaces they inhabit. Inspiration comes from my own memories. The rustle of vintage crinoline. The smell of steam iron on wool in the tailor shop where I visited my grandma. The whisper of tulle backstage at the ballet ….. unexpected slivers of time, place and the people who, even now, seem to wait there.

My paintings invite the viewer to join me in entering that space where fantasy and memory converge.