Charles Patrick

Charles Patrick is best known for his intricate cut paper butterflies, suspended like museum specimens on individual entomology pins and grouped together to form icons, logos, and symbols against the backdrop of pristine canvases. Living in a world between paper and the digital age, these works evoke feelings of nostalgia for the touch of paper, created from old comics, childrens books, coins, maps, and other outdated ephemera. This contrasts sharply with the clean, pixelated designs that form butterflies that exchange individual emotions for the universal immediacy of todays contemporary visual language. Targets, hearts, ohms, and stars roll off the canvas in three dimensions, a new departure from the flat-panel displays that are the norm today. With a background in vintage poster restoration, illustration, and printmaking, Charles Patrick combines his love of paper, art history, and design to create works that are strikingly beautiful and moving.