When artist Patrice Dworkin completed her monumental flying angel bas reliefs several years ago, she was pleased with what could be called a beautiful exploration of empowered women. She had equipped each of her “angels” with symbols of their shining talents’a briefcase for one, a trowel and garden gloves for another. While a few of these colorful papier-mach’ wall fixtures still hover like guardian angels in the studio of her Rustic Canyon home, Dworkin has continued her search for new content, admitting “that the best thing about the work is doing it, but as soon as I’m done, I’m done, and I’m ready to move on.” Dworkin confesses that she thought her angels were edging toward craft, and while she did enjoy such craft projects like making props for her children’s school projects, even volunteering to fabricate the man-eating plant for the Adderley School’s production of “The Little House of Horrors,” she eventually wanted to return to paint and ink. She sketched the world around her in her pocket tablet, worked with collage and paint, and experimented with different surfaces. Soon enough she found an imagery that would stimulate her imagination and invite introspection. “You never have to look very long for your creative ideas; they find you,” Dworkin says in tracing the origins of her new work. In her trials and experiments, she discovered Plexiglas, which attracted her because of its translucence and its durability, and for the past two years has been the “canvas” for her explosive creativity. To visualize Dworkin’s work, imagine a Chinese scroll with its delicate pastel watercolor images decorating a long, vertical parchment. Instead of paper, imagine Plexiglas with delicate, jewel-like lines incised on back and front against a pastel background. The panels pivot 360 degrees. The imagery mimics both the botanical and anatomical worlds, and is meant to resonate back and forth. Are those the delicate veins of the sycamore leaf or the fragile network of the circulatory system? Ever since Dworkin declared herself an artist a decade ago, snipping the safety tether to the Brentwood Art Center classes, she eagerly accepted the challenge of art, where there are no boundaries, no right, no wrong, but where she could go beyond the pretty and try to express the feelings which have no words. The new work combines Dworkin’s particular love of the plant world and the magnificent design of the human anatomy. “A single leaf my son Adam brought me inspired me and allowed me to go on more of an inner journey,” Dworkin says. While Dworkin’s paintings contain familiar imagery, they speak to her response to a period of grief and uncertainty. Her daughter Chloe was born with a heart anomaly, which required her to have a pulmonary valve removed when she was six months old. “Although she was chugging along with no symptoms without a pulmonary value, it became clear as she got older that there was an advantage to placing a value, which meant open-heart surgery,” Dworkin explains. Dworkin and her husband Stephen consulted heart specialists all over the world, and finally decided to go ahead with the operation. But the uncertainty over what to do, if anything, and then the uncertain success of the operation, was excruciating. “What do you do with all this?” Dworkin asks. “I realized that the only way to address this was in my work. You start to transfer something painful and turn it into something beautiful.” While Dworkin had resolved to use the imagery of the circulatory system in her work, although abstracted, she had to consider how Chloe would feel about it. “Chloe was thrilled and thought that my treating this very serious thing about her, her heart, not her pretty face, was wonderful.” You can see the remnants of the circulatory system Dworkin had been drawing over and over and over in earlier paintings, elements that she says have become very rich. The paintings have both botanical and anatomical references that are touch points for the meaning of the work. Chloe, who turns 15 in October, had successful heart surgery in June, bringing to an end the year of anxiety but also exuberant creativity for her mother. It is this work that the Los Angeles Art Association will feature in a solo exhibition, which opens with a reception from 5 to 8 p.m. Saturday, September 10 at Gallery 825/LAAA Annex at Bergamot Station. “Creating this show has been such a steadying influence,” Dworkin says, adding she is still intrigued by Plexiglas and her attachment to hearts and flowers (Chloe means blooming or growing). “For my future work I am considering a eucalyptus motif and more 6-ft. panels.” Although she has been absent from the studio this summer, caring for Chloe in recuperation and preparing Adam for his first year in college at Tufts, Patrice can’t wait to get back to work. “I’m compelled to do this,” she says. “If I don’t do this work, I get grumpy.”
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