Pat Conlon, Painter
Decontrol Gallery presents paintings by Pat Conlon
Pat Conlon's website is here
Slightly Stoopid music was used in Conlon's show
Patrick Conlon was born on February 13, 1971. He was raised in Rockaway Beach, New York, a small town near JFK airport. His parents Patrick and Elizabeth Conlon both worked for TWA, thus giving him the ability to travel during breaks from his "12 year Catholic School sentence". In fact, he states Duty Free Lego and the ("skateboardable architecture of") Eero Sarrinen's JFK TWA terminal as his earliest influences to design. He deemed high school uneventful other than surf trips and punk rock shows in nearby New York City. Conlon migrated to the warmth of Southern California to attend USC for his Bachelor of Fine Arts. During that time he started an industry surf zine that chronicled lifestyles, music, and trends in beach culture. This culture would have a profound effect on what would become the basis of his art, the art making process, and his understanding of the power of a sticker. In fact, surf culture would have a stronger impact on him than art history. He started toying with the idea of "stickering" found objects to make them new, or his own, all the while trying to avoid art history and seemingly leading itself to Duchamp or Rauschenberg. It wasn't until he moved back to New York in the late nineties and began to explore materials that his idea of packaged slick and iconographic messaging began to evolve. His process is more from an advertising standpoint, in which he prints his pieces onto vinyl, much like you'd see ratchet strapped to the side of a building. In a sense, he creates personal indoor advertising. "I want my paintings to encompass the lifestyle of a surfer or musician, in the way that it's adaptable, fun, creative, and it's overall searching for the newest and coolest thing." With that said, Conlon assures us that the next stages of his work will include multimedia aspects, vending machines, and paintings with scores. Pat Conlon is living, surfing, and working in New York City.
