Patty and Jack Wright

July 16 – August 28, 2022

Patty and Jack Wright presents the work of this creative couple in a gallery setting for the first time. The exhibition includes paintings by Jack from the 1970s–90s and ceramics made by Patty from the same period. Although both artists were prolific, Patty’s work was rarely shown. While Jack regularly exhibited his work, Patty discretely produced a collection of ceramics that brings dimension to themes that Jack was exploring in his paintings.

Patty (1920–1999) and Jack (1919–2003) Wright were originally from the Midwest. Seeking the open-minded ideals and expansive landscapes that characterized the Bay Area, they moved their family to Inverness, California, in 1950. Patty and Jack’s home and studios are located at the top of Vision Road, a long and winding track that leads from Inverness to the base of Mount Vision. Surrounded by Bishop pine forests, the property was the place the couple lived and worked for over forty years, raising their family and interpreting the surrounding environments through their art practices.

Jack Wright was known for his large-scale oil and acrylic paintings. His abstract compositions were typically formed from countless small brush strokes which when viewed from a distance are perceived as vibrant color fields. The simple dot was his most reductive unit of expression and he used it as a basis for endless formal invention. “When I paint with dots,” he once explained, “I do it quite rapidly. They give a random appearance to the painting but at the same time, they follow definite lines that are controlled.” Layered in his works are figures, some more obvious than others, but it was his interpretation of the human form and surrounding landscapes that links his work most directly to that of Patty’s ceramics.

Patty dedicated herself to exploring form through clay. When she began taking ceramics classes at community college in the late 1970s, she initially used a wheel however later she began exclusively to coil the clay, slowly building up forms. Patty’s process involved drawing a figure or a feature from the landscape and then translating that abstraction into a ceramic form. Her works negotiate the nuanced ground between craft and art. The ceramics are functional, but the scale and sculptural qualities of the pieces push them beyond domestic objects. The planes are sometimes angular, but not too sharp, each facet blending softly into the next. The surfaces of some pieces suggest a painted canvas rather than a glazed vessel. Her expressive marks refer more to modernist painting than to the decorative patterns that are typically associated with craft.

Both Patty and Jack had a gift for observing the world around them and both kept track of their lives with photos, clippings and sketch books. Jack’s extensive journals chronicled decades of his life and cataloged his day-to-day activities in exacting detail. Mixed into the daily routines of their lives are spontaneous sketches and ideas. It was not unusual to see a profound drawing next to a laundry list or a description of the day’s meals. Patty and Jack did not separate creation from their everyday life; to them they were one in the same. This resulted in a refined body of work, a collection of ceramics and paintings that navigate the extraordinary and the commonplace.