Patricia Dahlman

Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA in 1952. Lives and works in Lyndhurst, New Jersey, USA In the last few years I have focused on making sculpture. I wanted my paintings to be three dimensional and began cutting out forms in canvas then stuffing and sewing them together. These stuffed, sewn forms are either stitched using different colors of thread or painted with acrylic paint. The stitching was like drawing or painting and I liked the color and light the thread made on the stuffed canvas. Recently I have included sewn forms that are based on photographs from news magazines and off the internet of people such as George Bush and events like the insurgency in Iraq. Sometimes the work calls for additional materials such as feathers, a curtain rod, glass, mirrors and wood. The subject matter of my work is taken from personal thoughts, experiences in my life and reactions to political events around the world. I usually begin with a literal idea for a work and proceed to make images or forms to represent what I want to say. The original idea evolves during the working process and can become somewhat of a different idea than I had first planned. I finally arrive at a clear, well defined image and statement.

Patricia Dahlman was educated at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio where she received a BFA degree and at Yale University Summer School of Music and Art in Norfolk, CT. In the past few years Patricia has received the New Jersey Printmaking Fellowship at Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper, two Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Fellowships to attend Vermont Studio Center and Virginia Center for Creative Arts, and a grant from the Puffin Foundation for The War and Peace Print Project. Patricia has exhibited her work all over the United States and recently exhibited at Jersey City Museum, Jersey City, NJ, Gallery 621 in Tallahasee, FL, and George Adams Gallery in New York, NY,