A YBA living in Dallas, Richard Patterson seems to have absorbed both the louche cleverness of the Freeze generation and a uniquely Texas kind of integrated kitsch. The visitor to his exhibition at the Goss-Michael Foundation is greeted by a painting of an ex-Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, now a prominent philanthropist and art collector, posing in the signature spangled, blue-and-white garb; exquisitely painted from a photographic source, seemingly more real than reality, the work retains a good sense of humor almost despite its uncanniness. It also serves as a coda for the exhibition as a whole.  For despite all its appropriation-based tricks, which include painting over photographs then photo-realistically painting the hybrid photographic/painterly object, Patterson never gets mired in the most cerebral aspects of what it means to borrow so freely from various media, cultural reference-points, and moments in the history of painting itself.

His work has none of the methodical sternness of so much early photo-based painting, and yet nor does it convey the iconic assuredness of pop à la Lichtenstein or Rosenquist. Both these resistances to categorization are to the point. Patterson remains serious about painting even as he muddles any transparent sense of his process and brings to bear on his canvas cheerleaders, Spice Girls, and his own half-naked, reclining body—and all of these with undeniable insouciance. Something of that famous Texas earnestness seems to have rubbed off on him.

--Nico Machida

(*Images, from top to bottom:  Richard Patterson, Self Portrait, courtesy of the Goss Michael Foundation.  Richard Patterson, Posh, Thomson and Scary, 1997, Oil on canvas, 22 x 32 inches, courtesy of the Goss Michael Foundation.  Richard Patterson, Black Narcissus/Ellwood, L-word: Culture Station (Zipper) 1B, 2007, Maple plywood, aluminum and motorcycle, 96 x 84 x 156 inches, courtesy of the Goss Michael Foundation.)