BIOGRAPHY
Patrick Servedio’s serious artistic endeavors began at the College of Charleston. It was there that he encountered the strong artistic personalities of John Michel, Cliff Peacock, and Tom Durham. In 1994, he graduated with honors from the Anthropology Department as the “Distinguished Major of the Year” with a BS in anthropology and a minor in studio art. After graduating, he remained in Charleston, making art and seeking the advice of numerous artists including Bruno Civitico and William McCollough. In 1998 he moved to St. Louis Missouri to pursue graduate studies in painting at Fontbonne University. There he studied painting and drawing with Victor Wang, Tim Liddy and Hank Knickmeyer. In 2000, he graduated with an MFA in painting. Since graduating, Patrick has participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions. He has work in the collections of the City of Charleston and Erskine College as well many private collections. He currently resides in Laguna Hills, CA with his wife Christy and cat Ceasar.
ARTIST STATEMENT
In regards to making art, if I am forced to label myself, I would say I am a formalist at heart. For the most part, I am concerned with structure, color, form, movement and texture. Much like the cubists unravelling of reality and picking elements from that reality to create compositions, formalist have boiled down painting to their basic elements and choose from those elements to create art. The beauty of this approach is that you can throw everything but the kitchen sink into the composition much like Kandinsky or Stuart Davis or leave almost everything out like minimalist artists such as Agnes Martin and Ellsworth Kelly. I have experimented with both ends of this spectrum, but mostly lean towards creating complex composition. Most recently I have been creating mixed media compositions using collage and acrylic paint which hint at landscape and have an escapist leaning.
