Patricia L. Obletz

Tapping into streams of consciousness, Patricia Obletz, who [lived] in Milwaukee’s Washington Heights neighborhood, hails from Buffalo, N.Y., by way of Manhattan and Chicago. She studied life drawing and painting at Parsons School of Design and the Art Students League, both in New York City. One of Milwaukee’s leading artists, she has created a sizable body of work. She describes her style as expressionist.

Artist’s Statement for Ayzha Fine Arts

As a 21st Century colorist, I paint what I cannot photograph, translating external/internal complexities into layers of colors doodled on canvas, paper, wood or cardboard. I was five when drawing and painting became my first holy communion, and my religion. Be my subjects flesh, land, water, air, imagination or abstraction, viewers and collectors most frequently speak of the spirit of the work. This universal connection makes my art priceless to me.

Color inspires my compositions and drives their energy, movement and depth. Oil stick, tube or pastel color, shapes and textures on paper and canvas render social, political and cultural issues, portraits of human nature and existence. Each work is unpremeditated and begins with doodles dictated by my heart and spirit in streams of consciousness, where self-awareness disappears in solitary acts of creation.

The first three colors are random selections that dictate the palette. Each new layer of color urges evolution, until one subject dominates the whole, exciting me with its unexpected presence and the challenge of its development. What influences my work goes beyond art school and art history courses to current events and the rhythms of classical and contemporary music, Mahler to Dylan to McFerrin. Unintentional color-co-minglings sometime change the work’s direction.

Art museum and gallery travels across America and in Hawaii, Europe and Russia connect me to past and present art worlds. As some artists have in every era, my art advocates for justice, raising awareness of how to attain spiritual freedom that art and education create. These are the priceless components of my passion to paint.