Gender and Domestic Spaces – Ebony G. Patterson piece explore the role of women in domestic settings, both as members of high society and as servants who worked behind the scenes.

Ebony G. Patterson’s multidisciplinary practice examines themes of visibility and invisibility through the lens of class, race, gender, youth culture, pageantry, and violence within postcolonial contexts. Rooted in a painterly sensibility, her work spans tapestry, photography, video, sculpture, drawing, and installation, all unified by a distinctive visual language. Patterson’s intricately adorned and densely layered compositions draw viewers in, prompting reflection on the act of looking. She seeks to elevate those marginalized by colonial social structures, using their voices, attire, and pageantry as a means of memorialization. Her vibrant and captivating works invite deeper engagement with social injustices, blending beauty and paradox to challenge perceptions of presence and absence.

Since 2013, the concept of the garden—both real and imagined—has been central to Patterson’s practice, serving as a metaphor for postcolonial spaces and an extension of the body. She explores gardens as sites of power, questioning their relationship to beauty, class, race, and mortality. Her works balance splendor with underlying danger, creating memorials for the overlooked while emphasizing resilience and survival.

Born in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1981, Patterson holds an MFA in Printmaking and Drawing from the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis and a BFA in Painting from Edna Manley College of Visual and Performing Arts in Jamaica. She has taught at the University of Virginia, Edna Manley College, the University of Kentucky, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago as the Bill and Stephanie Sick Distinguished Visiting Professor.

Patterson’s work has been showcased in major solo exhibitions, including …while the dew is still on the roses… at Pérez Art Museum Miami (2018), which traveled to the Speed Art Museum and the Nasher Museum at Duke University. Her recent solo shows include …things come to thrive…in the shedding…in the molting… at the New York Botanical Garden (2023) and exhibitions at moniquemeloche (Chicago), Hales Gallery (New York), and Kunsthal Aarhus (Denmark). Her work has been included in group exhibitions at institutions such as The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Studio Museum in Harlem, the Brooklyn Museum, MCA Chicago, ICA Boston, the Liverpool Biennial, and the São Paulo Biennial. In 2022, she was appointed the first Susan Brennan Co-Artistic Director of Prospect.6, which opened in 2024.

Patterson’s work is held in public collections including The Whitney Museum, LACMA, SFMOMA, Pérez Art Museum Miami, The High Museum, and The National Gallery of Jamaica. She has received numerous accolades, including the MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant (2024), the David C. Driskell Prize (2023), the Tiffany Foundation Grant (2017), the United States Artists Award (2018), and the Joan Mitchell Foundation Art Grant (2015). She lives and works between Kingston, Jamaica, and Chicago, Illinois.