Patricia Halsell
Bio
Patricia Halsell is an award-winning artist, working primarily in still life and large scale scenes of nature that hover between realism and abstraction.
Her paintings reflect her strong environmentalism and love of nature. Her current river stones series is her response to the plight of the Puget Sound orcas, whose survival depends on the health of western rivers and the salmon who run them.
Her work has been exhibited at Whatcom Museum, Bellingham, WA, numerous times at Maryhill Museum of Art, Goldendale, WA, and juried into the 2019 Anacortes Arts Festival and the Museum of Northwest Art’s 2019 live auction.
She trained for four years in the atelier of internationally-recognized artist, author and teacher Juliette Aristides, and studied under numerous internationally known master painters. Her interpretation of her subject matter using classical techniques produces a body of work that is contemporary, beautiful, and timeless. She is in demand for commissions and her work is in private collections across the country.
Artist Statement
Patricia Halsell is a classically trained figurative oil painter who paints in a contemporary style, relying on draftsmanship and a bit of abstraction in her work. She is fascinated by bowerbirds, native to Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, and Australia, who build elaborate structures (“bowers”) from twigs and decorate their thresholds with flowers, bits of brightly colored plastic, shells, or seed pods to attract a mate. Halsell built a hut of sticks in her garden which she used as a reference to paint the bower and gathered the porcelain shards in the painting while beach combing in Saipan. Since crows collect interesting objects and will often leave “gifts” for those who feed them, the artist chose a crow as the “Pacific Northwest Bowerbird,” depicted here as an ethereal suggestion.
The River Stones series is my response to environmental degradation and climate change. By focusing on the river stones of the Skagit River of northwestern Washington state, I’m exploring my concerns about the effects of climate change, pollution and dams on the plight of the Puget Sound orcas, whose survival depends on the health of western rivers and the salmon who run them.
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Patricia Halsell
Patricia Halsell is a classically trained figurative oil painter who paints in a contemporary style, relying on draftsmanship and a bit of abstraction in her work. She is fascinated by bowerbirds, native to Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, and Australia, who build elaborate structures (“bowers”) from twigs and decorate their thresholds with flowers, bits of brightly colored plastic, shells, or seed pods to attract a mate. Halsell built a hut of sticks in her garden which she used as a reference to paint the bower and gathered the porcelain shards in the painting while beach combing in Saipan. Since crows collect interesting objects and will often leave “gifts” for those who feed them, the artist chose a crow as the “Pacific Northwest Bowerbird,” depicted here as an ethereal suggestion.
The River Stones series is my response to environmental degradation and climate change. By focusing on the river stones of the Skagit River of northwestern Washington state, I’m exploring my concerns about the effects of climate change, pollution and dams on the plight of the Puget Sound orcas, whose survival depends on the health of western rivers and the salmon who run them.
