Sep 3

Patrick Heagney

Patrick Heagney is an expressive and experimental photographer who is represented by Kai Lin Art in Atlanta, Georgia. He has exhibited extensively in Atlanta with notable recent exhibitions including at venues such as the Museum of Contemporary Art, Grey Gallery, and annual showings at Kai Line Art since 2011. Patrick’s exhibitions outside of Atlanta include exhibits at The Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Red Gallery in Savannah, Center for Fine Art Photography in Fort Collins, Colorado, and Buddy Holly Center Fine Arts Gallery in Lubbock, Texas. Patrick has won multiple awards from the American Society of Media Photographers and AmerIcan Photographic Artists.

The photography mainly comes in three types of series which include several variant series called Chimera, as well as two other distinct series titled Paper Thin, and Machine Learning. Chimera mainly contains abstracted photography of figures which have been motion blurred into streaks of color and freeforms. Paper Thin contains miniature hand-crafted models of landscapes and interiors made out of paper with small figures photoshopped into these theatrical sets. Machine Learning, despite the implication does not involve artificial intelligence, but rather the opposite of capturing primitive photography by Patrick’s 0.014 megapixel gameboy camera from 1999.

While the Paper Thin series may seem mystical and enchanting, Machine Learning and Chimera series on the other hand express a distinct message in distortion, pixelization, interference, and blurs. What ties these works together would be Patrick’s imagination to involve a detachment from reality and into a realm of infinite possibilities whether in shrinking, stretching, neutralizing, or abstracting form.

Probably the most distinct of Patrick Heagney’s photography remains the Paper Thin series, such as the piece above. As we can observe the figures with playful manners which seem to be child-like environments, even toy-like. Machine Learning series, such as the piece below, on the hand provides aesthetics in simplification and purity. Machine Learning could even be described as minimalist photography, despite being figurative, in the minimal, pixelated portrayal of organic form.

Patrick Heagney can be described as a visionary artist who pushes the boundaries of contemporary figurative photography through child-like props, motion blur abstractions, and extreme pixelization. With a knack for variety and a deep inclination towards expressive qualities regarding the human form, Patrick Heagney takes the viewer on a journey through his wild imagination of distortions on a grand scale, as if accidentally wandering into his personal carnival funhouse.