Patrick Gracewood
Portland, OR
Patrick Gracewood's art is a collaboration with nature. He uses wood to bring the more than human into deeply human experiences of time, mortality, eternity.
Message
Patrick Gracewood is a professional sculptor, designer, and studio artist. He attended California State University Long Beach; his focus, drawing and sculpture, led to a forty years career creating sculpture for a wide variety of clients and purposes. Commercial work includes prosthetic makeup and set design for film and television, restoration of architectural ornament on historic buildings, design and modeling of architectural art for new construction, custom commissioned sculpture and fountains, and two public art commissions.
He has created sculpture workshops for students in Portland public schools, and given talks at the Japanese Garden and to the Hardy Plant Society of Oregon on "Siting sculpture - How correct placement can turn an object into an environment." Gracewood has also created an instructive video series that can be seen on Youtube,
For the past decade, Gracewood has worked with construction debris, creating large relief sculpture. His narrative themes are how time, mortality and eternity intersect with cultures ancient and modern.
Statement
I’ve been making all sorts of sculpture, personally and professionally since 1980. Loving the art of the ancient world, I enjoy collapsing time between then and now in my own work: An Ancient Egyptian cell phone? Not a problem for my imagination. Humor is an important element of my work.
Professionally I made sculpture for film, tv, the display industry, and architectural restoration. All the film work went into the dumpster at the end of filming, creating architectural ornament for new buildings and historic restoration was satisfying because it lasts. The architectural work influenced my own fine art, philosophically and technically, but I never expected to integrate its symbols into my own studio work. To my great surprise, the symbolism of classical nature motifs acanthus, oak, laurel, etc bring their depth of meaning to my sculpture. My art continues the classical tradition connecting the natural and the built environments. I believe that art about our relationship with the living Earth is art that will speak to future generations. My current work, large carved relief panels, uses reclaimed construction debris; wood records its history, just as we do. My art tells stories on many levels and deals with current events seen through a historical lens.