Oates paints figures and landscapes that never quite reveal whether they are emerging or disappearing. His work returns to familiar people he never met, places he can’t quite claim, and the gap between what gets passed down and what gets imagined around it.
The same air and light hold every painting regardless of subject, so that a single world emerges across the work, built from rural landscapes, family folklore, and personal observation rather than any fixed place. Small anomalies recur: light behaving strangely, colour belonging to a feeling rather than observation, following no logic but feeling slightly inevitable.
The work asks what we carry, what we come from, and where we belong, then refuses to answer. That refusal is the point.
Patrick Oates (b. 1992) is an Australian painter working on Yaegl Country in the Clarence Valley, New South Wales. Born in Mackay, Queensland, Oates has exhibited in Australia, the United States and Canada, including a solo exhibition with Visions West Contemporary and the museum exhibition Beyond the Horizon at the Museum of Outdoor Arts, Colorado. He has undertaken artist residencies in Kyoto, Japan, and his work is held in private collections across Australia, the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.