Patrick Eugène
FRIEZE

Patrick Eugène, a Haitian American painter, presents chambers of paintings and two installations in his solo debut exhibition with Mariane Ibrahim. Souvenirs held in a vitrine hint at the themes of the exhibition. Photographs – clearly taken at different points across a long history – surround a central orange dress like a shrine. The paintings on view are portraits but are not necessarily drawn from likeness to existent figures; the artist pulls not only from the personal experience of himself and his family but also from a feeling of solidarity and connection with his ancestors and a pan-African identity.

 

The exhibition’s title, 50 lbs., references the weight restrictions applied to airline luggage and the burdens of individual and collective displacement. Eugène visualizes the weight of such ruminations in a moving installation given its room. Vintage suitcases, like the items in the vitrine and each portrait on view, clearly belong not only to different individuals but different eras: stacked aimlessly atop each other, one spills out books and belongings as if its owner had but a minute to pack.