A WASH IN POSSIBILITY

The paintings of Patricia Markos Dolan are portals to the elemental.

The artist’s world is limitless,” observed the great 20th-century photographer Paul Strand. “It can be found anywhere, far from where he lives or a few feet away. It is always on his doorstep.” For Winnetka-based artist Patricia Markos Dolan, that world is framed by Greece and the North Shore, by the Aegean Sea and Lake Michigan. Keenly attuned to dualities of the evanescent and the deeply rooted and the spiritual and the ineffable, she muses intently on the singularity of human existence, expressing this in works that draw from the mute eloquence of sun, wind, and water.

A first-generation American, Dolan has spent her life between the United States and Greece, where her parents were born. Greek is her mother tongue, and the song of its sounds has always informed her comprehension of the world. From childhood, she felt the urge to create, turning early on to pencil, pen, and ink to make her mark.

Dolan attended the School of the Art Institute, but she has always sought to draw the world beyond the studio, striving to pierce what lies below the surface of things. “Education is a formality, but art is a practice of life and intuition,” she observes. For her, each canvas is a manifestation of a path, an exploration, a flow of energy that can be traced in form and color. Her creative course begins slowly, deliberately, as she mixes her paints and ponders the colors that arise. “As the brush and palette knife hit the canvas, existence begins,” shares Dolan. “I feel light, form, space, and energy, atoms becoming one life. Socrates’ spirit rings loudly in that moment, ‘The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing …’”

While she responds to the work of Whistler, Turner, and Rothko—masters of atmospheric dematerialization—she revels in operating with “blinders on … creating my own voice, void of outside influences on the path to awakening.” But embedded in her experience is the vision of the Parthenon, once home to a colossal golden statue of Athena, protectress of Athens, and Mount Olympus, home of the gods. And when her gaze takes in Lake Michigan, heritage and the here-and-now merge.

Working primarily in shades of blue, green, and white, Dolan creates myriad images, each one unique. Some suggest a vantage point from a beach; others could be mid-sea. A slap of heavy impasto can represent a breaking wave halfway to the horizon. A dynamic matrix of irregular lines conjures a tidal pool shot through with sunlight. Some of these paintings evoke a sense of motion, others seem to freeze a moment in time. While some read almost instantly as marine vistas, others take time to assume the outline of something recognizable. One canvas may induce a meditative mode, while another intimates the vehemence of nature.

“Life is a mystery, a romance between life and death,” observes Dolan, who will be enjoying a solo show at Winnetka’s Vivid Art Gallery September 2 – 30 with an opening on the 5th. “I am flattered and humbled when my work speaks to collectors,” says the artist. “In this world of hustle and bustle, my work allows the viewer to pause, breathe, listen. To contemplate love and pain, healing, hope, and courage, to really think, ‘Who are we?’ For me, every piece is a new life, a new beginning. A new energy. I am moved when the connection becomes one.”

For more information, visit patriciamdolan.com and vividartgallery.net.