Show Preview | Robbie Fitzpatrick - Southwest Art Magazine

Clute, TX
Brazosport Center for the Arts & Sciences, October 15-November 10

Robbie Fitzpatrick, Herd of Horns, watercolor, 21 x 27.

This story was featured in the October 2019 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art October 2019 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.

IT HAS ALWAYS been about the light, first and foremost, for artist Robbie Fitzpatrick: the way it dramatically intermingles with shadow; the way it illuminates, almost magically, the arresting features of her subjects; and the way it lends depth, story, and emotion to the scenes she portrays in her chosen medium of watercolors. But, sums up Fitzpatrick, “You have to have the dark to make the light show up. That’s what I’m about.”

: Robbie Fitzpatrick, Daddy’s Shoes, watercolor, 29 x 23.

: Robbie Fitzpatrick, Ballet Shoes, watercolor, 14 x 11.

: Robbie Fitzpatrick, Dressage Diva, watercolor, 29 x 21.

Now the Texas artist’s raison d’être for painting is the theme of her first solo exhibition, entitled Moments of Light, which opens at Brazosport Center for the Arts & Sciences in Clute, TX, on Tuesday, October 15. An artist’s reception follows that Friday at 6 p.m. More than 50 paintings are on view and for sale in this expansive, retrospective-like exhibition, although Fitzpatrick prefers to describe the show a bit differently: “It’s a picture of who I am,” she says. “It’s where I’ve come from.”

Fitzpatrick, whom the Art Renewal Center has recognized as one of its ARC Living Artists, learned to paint just seven years ago, after honing her skills in pencil drawing and pottery. “I would take the glaze and paint pictures on my pottery,” chuckles the artist, who instinctively gravitated toward a detailed, realist style when she started painting, despite also choosing the famously capricious medium of watercolors. “I love it,” she says, “because I’m a problem-solver.”

: Robbie Fitzpatrick, Interlude, watercolor, 21 x 15.

: Robbie Fitzpatrick, Lynx Alert, watercolor, 19 x 11.

: Robbie Fitzpatrick, Please, watercolor, 18 x 12.

For her show, the artist selected a mix of paintings created between 2012 and 2019, offering viewers a pleasingly diverse overview of her love for animals, from dogs to dressage, and a variety of other subjects. Works on view include a trio of paintings depicting luminous ballet shoes with subtly different narratives. Also in the show is a tender, multi-award-winning portrait of the artist’s Rhodesian ridgeback, Makena, doused in sunlight and shadow.

Fitzpatrick suspects she’ll feel a little sad when she parts with any of her paintings in the show that sell. “The trouble with painting what you love is that you love all your paintings,” she says. But there’s joy, too, when her paintings find new homes with collectors, who often tell her about their own warm memories her works spark for them. “I’m just blessed,” she says. “I know people have guardian angels. I think I have an art angel. I love what I do.” —Kim Agricola

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