June 11 – July 29, 2026 

Opening Reception: Thursday June 11, 6-8PM

Fermata: a prolongation at the discretion of the performer of a musical note, chord, or rest beyond its given time value

also : the sign denoting such a prolongation

Fermata brings together two series of work by Anne Patterson (b. 1960) created during the Covid-19 pandemic. Time moved in different directions during this global prolongation: days bled into one another, yet the seasons asserted themselves with unusual clarity. Years on, Patterson’s work reflects this strange and quiet time for the artist, and for all of us.

The series of watercolors exhibited here were painted in response to the book Year of Wonder by Clemency Burton-Hill, which proposes a piece of classical music for every day of the year. Anne Patterson sees music. Across her practice, she translates sound into color, light, and movement. Each work is a record of her synaesthetic experience, inviting the viewer to inhabit her sensory world. For Year of Wonder, Patterson kept a musical diary — painting her visions of music each day for a year. Like the logbook of an explorer on a mystical journey, it is a catalogue of a world we cannot see. Together, the 365 paintings form a vast grid that envelops the viewer: a symphony of form and color that compresses a whole year into a single moment.

Accompanying Year of Wonder is Patterson's sculpture series The Paths We Take, inspired by the nature surrounding her Rhode Island home. Around Narragansett, these common reeds punctuate the landscape, framing the river in gently swaying lines. Bowing on the shore, their stalks are strummed by the wind. Downy inflorescences shivering, their fuzzy coats catching the light off the water. Patterson collects these reeds, studying their resilient forms: stoic through wind, rain, and snow. She casts them in stainless steel, creating an armored likeness of each delicate grass. As light skates across the metal, the particularity of each plant is preserved — a lasting portrait of a natural world that bends but does not break.

Anne Patterson (b. 1960) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn. Working across painting, sculpture, and installation, Patterson explores the ways our senses overlap, and how together they create an experience greater than the sum of its parts. Informed by her own synesthesia and her training as a set designer, she is often inspired by music and sound. This call and response with other art forms is central to her practice – collaborating with composers, perfumers, lighting designers, choreographers, or architects. Patterson’s installations, sculptures, and paintings function as transitional objects, using affect to open new spiritual and emotional experiences for the audience.

Patterson has created large-scale installations for cathedrals, museums and corporate spaces across the country, including at St. John the Divine Cathedral, New York, NY (2024), Capital One Bank, McLean, VA (installed in 2023, permanent installation), The Color Factory, Willis Tower, Chicago, IL (installed in 2022, permanent installation), Ermenigildo Zegna’s Fall Winter presentation, Milan, Italy (2020), Bogardus Plaza, Tribeca, New York, NY (2018), the Community Foundation of Sarasota, Sarasota, FL (installed in 2017), The Venetian Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV (installed in 2017), Christ Church Cathedral, Cincinnati, OH (installed in 2017), Tishman Speyer at 125 High St., Boston, MA (installed from 2015 to 2020), Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA (2013). Patterson has also created orchestral installations and sets for theater and opera productions at major venues across the United States including Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Arena Stage, The Wilma Theater, The Kennedy Center, and the Alliance Theater; and prestigious symphonies throughout the country (San Francisco, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Chicago, Seattle).

Patterson has had solo and two-person exhibitions at the Sarasota Art Museum, FL (2024), Jessica Hagen Gallery, Newport, RI (2021), The Ringling Museum of Art, FL (2016), Alfstad&Contemporary, FL (2016), The Shaw Room, Atlanta, GA (2012), and The Marmara Gallery, New York, NY (2008). Her work has been included in group exhibitions at Jessica Hagen Gallery, Newport, RI (2026), Sun Valley Museum of Art, Ketchum, ID (2023), Trapholt Museum of Art and Design, Kolding, Denmark (2019), Christina Grajales Gallery, New York, NY (2019), Building Bridges Art Exchange, Los Angeles, CA (2017), Valerie Dillon Gallery, New York, NY (2014), Denise Bibro Gallery, New York, NY (2014), One Twelve Gallery, Atlanta, GA (2013), and Cade Tompkins Projects, Providence, RI (2010) among others.

Patterson’s work is held in important public and private collections, including Memorial Sloan Kettering, New York, NY; New York Presbyterian Hospital, New York, NY; Rhode Island Blue Cross, Providence, RI; Zegna, Milan, Italy; and Tribune Media, New York, NY. 

Download the press release here.