Inadvertent Arson

Excerpt from the exhibition essay, by Dr. Emily Stamey

Creation. Destruction. Preservation. These phenomena provide the core themes of artist Patrick Duegaw's Painted Theatre Project. This ongoing creative endeavor synthesizes his training as an architect, past word as a designer, skills as a painter, and love of poetry and storytelling. It evolves in a series of what Duegaw calls Still Plays - exhibitions in which individual paintings, presented in a highly-designed gallery space, stand in for characters, props, and sets on a stage. These theatrical installations, and the project as a whole, revolve around three figures - creator, destroyer, and preserver - that personify the key themes. Though informed by the artist's interest in the divine triads found throughout many mythologies and faith traditions, these protagonists are emphatically vernacular, drawn from Duegaw's secular life and the lives of those around him. His first Still Plays focused on his creator character, The Builder. In this installation, he introduces his unwitting destroyer, The Inadvertent Arsonist.

The exhibition catalogue may be viewed online via Issuu.