Pat Service
In My View

June 13, 2009 to August 15, 2009

Pat Service’s approach to painting isn't inspired by a traditional romantic notion of landscape painting, nor by an imposed ideology, in which theory excessively influences the result.  Instead, her work reveals her very personal experience as a participant in the landscape.  Often, the simplest and most mundane object can elicit a direct response in her painting. 

In the catalogue for an exhibition in Vancouver in 1992, Drawn to the Edge, Charles Killam wrote, “many painters keep to a tighter range for fear of appearing inconsistent, but the unmistakable consistency of Pat’s work lies in the way she grabs what she wants from nature and performs her own peculiar alchemy on it."  There is a sense of sophisticated innocence, which is not actually naïve, but demonstrates an unwillingness to simply emulate the style and vision of others. 

While much of the work reflects her surroundings in and around Vancouver, many of the paintings developed from frequent visits to the prairies.  Since the early 1980s, Service attended several artists’ workshops at Emma Lake, Saskatchewan.  More recently, in the 1990s, she participated in the Triangle Artists’ Workshops in upstate New York.

Pat was born in Port Alberni, BC.  She studied at the University of British Columbia and the Glasgow school of Art in Scotland.  She has had 60 or so solo and group exhibitions in Canada and has work in numerous collections in North America.  She lives in Vancouver, BC



Richard Reid
June, 2009