WM: The Language of Art

Art has always been a way for Patrick Alston ’13 to make sense of the world. The random decay of buildings of New York City, the disorder and trauma around him, and the fundamentals of art he learned at Wabash have created the foundation for the blooming
Kim Johnson, Wabash, April 19, 2024
Patrick Alston ’13 speaks in abstract.
 
“I appreciate the cross-cultural ties of abstraction and influences from around the world,” Alston says. “It was something that felt like a universal connector between generations, between cultures, it felt like something where my voice was most comfortable.
 
“I needed the experience at Wabash to learn the traditional focuses of painting,” he says. “But it gets really exciting when you break that mold and break into this language that has no bounds and is not necessarily tied to anything visually in our world.”
 
If size is volume, Alston’s giant works are loud.
“It is appropriate for the works to be in these grandiose scales. It makes it all encompassing,” he says. “I don't know if smaller works of mine have the same impact as larger works. I scaled up as I moved along in my art career, and it has felt great.”