‘As an Artist, You Look at Everything’: Emerging Painter Patrick Alston on How His South Bronx Home Infuses His Abstract Art

Alston explains how he found his style, and the mission he sees for his work today.
Folasade Ologundudu, artnet, December 22, 2021
At just 30, the art of Patrick Alston is already immediately identifiable, with a signature materiality and use of gestural marks to create dynamic and colorful abstractions. The central themes of his varied body of work are identity, process, environment, and color theory.
 
The South Bronx native attended Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana, where he studied both art and psychology. He currently lives and works between the Bronx and New Haven, Connecticut where he recently set up a large studio. He attended the Gallery 1957 artist residency in Accra, Ghana this summer, while his first solo exhibition, titled “Let There Be Light” and curated by Larry Ossei-Mensah, was seen at Ross + Kramer Gallery in Chelsea. 
 
For that show, Alston presented his first installation piece, moving beyond painting and incorporating art found objects and discarded materials sourced throughout his Bronx neighborhood and surrounding areas. “For Sale” and foreclosure signs, construction materials, and objects used in the creation of new luxury high rises highlighted the juxtaposition of poverty with the influx of economic wealth in low-income areas of the Bronx that continue to displace members of his local community.