LOU PATROU - NEW YORK

Born in Rochester NY in the mid 50's, Lou grew up within a typical large American family household. He has been drawing and painting faces and animal and human forms steadily since his early teens.

Cemetery - 2004 - Graphite on paper

Green Message -1981-Watercolor on paper

Half Storm - 1985 - Pastel on paper

It's A Shame - 1984 - Pastel on paper

Flames - 2003 - Watercolor and Acrylic on paper

"Most of my work falls into three different types or styles. Loose and scratchy pastels, decorative candy-like patterns and expressive black and white pencil drawings. The pastels are fun to work on because they are done without any planning at all, just on feelings. I start working the paper to see what develops, a face or expression of a face starts taking shape, and the you just follow it till you finish."

"I started doing the pattern- like paintings with absolutely no planning in the beginning like Green Message. I just began painting with a small brush and the figures appeared in random rows, then I painted in the background. Flames which is a more recent work was meticulsouly mapped out before I started it. I did color studies of everything, the sets of faces, different combinations of flying accent shapes and colors and also just exactly how all of the edges join together and relate to each other over the background. The graphite drawings are portraits that start out as inspiration and then turn into detail puzzles. I like shaping and forming with different shades of grays and black.

Richard - 1989 - Graphite on paper

I enjoy switching gears and doing something different after each project. I find it difficult to work in the same discpline all the time, it is to constricting for me, I don't see how other artists can do that.

"Over the years I have done still life studies of flowers and inanimate objects, I also fooled around with some abstracts, but none of those left me with any feeling of satisfaction at all either in the process or finished piece."