ARTIST PROFILE
Patsy Lowry This third-generation Phoenician has lived in Arizona all her life. She attended Xavier Prep and took a degree at Arizona State University. Her life here shows in her work. Patsy Lowry’s large-scale acrylic paintings are as full of color as a beautiful desert sky in November or a bright red flower on top of a barrel cactus. “The colors of Arizona are my palette,” she says. “My senses are heightened and awakened by the shapes, forms and textures of the Arizona landscape. I am surrounded by mountains, cactus and the desert. Every morning, I am awakened to the sunrise in the east. And in the evening, there is a sunset in the west to set my soul on fire.”
Recently, Patsy opened a retrospective show at Paradise Valley Town Hall that will be up all year. It was tribute, of sorts, to this artist whose work tells the story without words of the landscape we share. She has exhibited at the Phoenix Art Museum and the Heard Museum as well as studios across the U.S. Her paintings border on abstraction. Yet there’s a sense of looking at “something” with roots in the real world. That may be what makes her art so instantly likeable. Years ago she was lunching with a friend at John Gardiner’s Tennis Ranch. A man stopped to admire a scarf worn by Patsy’s lunch companion. Patsy informed him it was her own creation. The man turned out to
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TRENDS MAGAZINE
be the president of Saks Fifth Avenue, and her career took off immediately with a Saks’ clothing line. She still works in fabric and other media, including caftans, bronzes and purses. Each vehicle has the same purpose for her. “I constantly ask myself, ‘Is this artistic expression a reflection of who I truly am, or am I repeating an old, familiar story?’ Art is my color, my light, my essence, my heart and soul. It is the vessel into which I pour myself daily. It gives me purpose. It gives me structure. It gives me hope.” For better look at her work, visit P.V. Town Hall at 6401 E. Lincoln Drive or visit www.patsylowry.com.