My name is Jessi Patton and I am a painter who lives and works in Los Angeles. I am a recent graduate of the drawing and painting BFA program at Cal State Long Beach. My paintings depict night scenes that accentuate the presence of light (from cars, stoplights, flashlights and the like) within the urban environment. The city, while artificial and disconnected from nature, becomes for its natives an integral part of day-to-day experiences, emotional attachments, and memories. The fleeting, liminal spaces that we pass through between destinations become places of meditation and archives of emotion.
I create these scenes with a combination of direct observational studies and reference imagery that I have collected over time while walking and commuting at night. I use these references less directly as the painting progresses, taking liberty in the color and light logic. I experiment with saturation and value to depict light in an unnatural way and create scenes of warmth that resist the cool, pervasive darkness of the city. Grounded in my upbringing within Southern California’s illuminated urban landscape, I see light as a compelling way to contemplate small, still moments in a world of constant movement and transience.