Inside the Charmed Life (and Incredible Studio) of Artist Grear Patterson

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Inside the Charmed Life (and Incredible Studio) of Artist Grear Patterson Lili Göksenin April 26, 2017 With a little help from pals like James Franco, Gia Coppola, and Laurie Simmons, he is one of

He s working on a show there called Cereal Eater which is based on a movie he made when he was 16 about the importance of friends.

1 Inside the Charmed Life (and Incredible Studio) of Artist Grear Patterson Lili Göksenin April 26, 2017 With a little help from pals like James Franco, Gia Coppola, and Laurie Simmons, he is one of the most exciting artists to watch in Right now Grear Patterson is in Ireland doing an artist residency at the Irish Museum of Modern Art and is showing at Ellis King in Dublin. He s working on a show there called Cereal Eater which is based on a movie he made when he was 16 about the importance of friends. The pieces in the show (like the airplanes, and the stuffed animals) are all about the experience of childhood, but with the perspective flipped. Everything is kind of huge, in the same way that everything felt kind of huge when you were a little kid. He s also going to fill a room with cereal so that visitors can just step all over it and feel the crunch. Did your mom, or a friend's mom ever yell at you for stepping on cereal? Yeah that stuff gets all over the floor. I was always doing dumb stuff like that. He wants to recreate that feeling of being kind of an idiot kid for all of us. Patterson is a young dude who makes movies and writes children s books, has sold enough of his own art to buy his own multi-story building in the Bronx, and once smoked weed on a Vogue shoot. He's also this jolly, open-hearted guy who talks about his career in fine art like he's a supporting player everyone else in his life gets credit for getting him to a place where he can sell pieces for $25,000. There's something about him that feels genuinely, sweetly,

refreshingly naïve we weren't able to meet up in person due to conflicting schedules, but he's been texting me videos of gardens from Dublin apropos to nothing and he wins you over pretty much right

2 refreshingly naïve we weren't able to meet up in person due to conflicting schedules, but he's been texting me videos of gardens from Dublin apropos to nothing and he wins you over pretty much right away. Over the phone, Patterson tells his life story like it s obvious: He moved to New York City when he was 17 to live with a girl. He worked for photographer Jason Schmidt who was this G and Dash Snow, Roe Ethridge, David Benjamin Sherry. He dropped out of Duke and transferred to SVA. I lived in the city, I worked, I had a girlfriend that kind of thing, he says. Then I got the building in the Bronx four years ago. I ve been saving money trying to make work ever since. Haha! Getting Patterson to back up and really go through the process of becoming the kind of artist that isn t starving isn t so easy, it all just seems to have come organically, a natural progression of luck, relationships, and support. He credits his father, too, with instilling in him a particular set of values that stuck: Never look in the mirror unless you re shaving. Only do something if you re going to do it well. And never quit. You might be surprised to learn I was that art patrons still exist, people who are willing to bankroll artists while getting very little in return. Patterson s patron was the jewelry designer and philanthropist Brooke Garber Neidich who, along with her husband, provided him with a studio space and paid for his first group show. She s a real sweet lady, he says, she made me understand what was possible. She taught me that if you have an idea and it s really organized and presented well, people will take it seriously. She pushed him to show and she gave him a check for $25,000 to make it happen. People did start to take him seriously. Beth DeWoody, legendary collector, curator, and philanthropist curated a show for him. Patterson counts artist Laurie Simmons (and her daughter Lena Dunham) as a friend, and Adam Weinberg, Director of the Whitney Museum of American Art (or the guy at the Whitney,

according to Patterson) as an early supporter. Vito Schnabel bought his work as did Gagosian s Cooke Maroney. You can t do anything alone, Patterson explains.

3 according to Patterson) as an early supporter. Vito Schnabel bought his work as did Gagosian s Cooke Maroney. You can t do anything alone, Patterson explains. Like when you build a car you need people to lift shit. When you put in a four wheel drive, that thing is so heavy! You definitely need someone next to you.

4 The moment when he was able to set out on his own came when in one week he sold 4 photographs and made over $10,000. Up until then he had been crashing on friend s couches only when they offered or when he was out of money if he had any cash he would stay at a hotel, because he was too embarrassed to ask friends for help. After he sold 10K worth of prints, though, it was on: He signed a lease in Washington Heights and started making more art. I made a goal that I would sell one photo a month. I would sell a photo for $1250 and that supported my lifestyle. But he knew he could do better. I was aware of the market and I was aware that paintings sold for much more, he says. So he brought in a friend to live with him (lowering an already low overhead) and made 8-foot paintings in his apartment which sold for $25,000. Now he owns a building in the Bronx (where all the pictures here were taken) where he works and sleeps and builds dog houses for the autoshop's dog next door (he feels bad that they keep him indoors).

6 A day in the life of a modern artist is a little bit like a day in the life of anyone really. One difference is that Patterson follows the sun s schedule, he doesn t set alarms I think alarms are annoying and he makes artist-type to-do lists he conquers like a game. I lay out the 4-5 things I want to do that day and I have them ready. It s fun because I can visualize. He doesn't make actual lists: I get worried about evidence, he says. Another normal thing that Patterson is doing is working on a children s picture book with James Franco. The two met on the set of the 2014 film Palo Alto which is based on Franco s short story collection of the same name. Patterson was hired by director Gia Coppola as the on-set art photographer. Franco and Patterson stayed in touch. We write to each other about how sometimes you get insecure about what you make and that s just part of the deal, says Patterson. They ve flipped their roles for this book: Franco is illustrating and Patterson has written the story, which is about a loss of innocence, coming-of-age. I just like James and the drawings he did were so good. Like so good. And he s really humble.

8 Finally, we should add that he s ALSO involved in fashion. I think the make up of an artist and the makeup of a designer is really close, he says. You know how in chemistry there s just one molecule difference between two substances but the structure is the exact same? It s like that. When his relationship with the Rochambeau designers Joshua Cooper and Laurence Chandler brought him to the CVFF award show in November, Patterson was moved by something Michael Kors said in his keynote speech. It was kind of stupid, but it was also kind of brilliant, he says. His definition of his own success is if he sees his stuff everywhere. He just wants to sell his shit to everyone. He s able to let go of what he s made and I respect that. That s something I need to work on. So he working on that and now that he considers himself an adult, he's looking around him at the friends he came up with and seems frankly shocked they all made it in one piece. We were just these kids transitioning into adulthood together, he says. I m actually really proud of all my friends. When Alex de Corte had a baby at Frieze last year, [ed note: not an actual baby as I first thought. It was a huge blow-up baby float.] I remember going over the bridge and being like That s my boy! that shit feels good, you just get excited. Also: As you get older maybe you just don't smoke weed in the daytime.

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