Holy Roman Empire

Artist PJ Paterson uses gritty images to create vivid depictions of the decaying edges of urban society. Holy Roman Empire is Paterson’s first solo exhibition, and it is with a certain irony that it is ‘in Parnell’ - a stronghold of the affluent and upwardly mobile.

This incongruity is not lost on Paterson, whose works in the current time obliquely reference the credit crisis – a crisis which ironically hits those at the top and bottom end of the monetary scale the hardest. There is also a broader social paradox implicit in both the waste of capital and the subsequent use and transformation of that abandoned capital at the hands of street artists.

Paterson’s base material is sourced primarily from the artist’s original photography, but also from appropriated images widespread in popular culture. The artist may choose overtly political or culturally loaded images, but images may be chosen merely because they are visually cool.

His current body of work focuses on train yards - hot beds of graffiti and vandalism and free creative space for the work of street artists. Paterson’s trains are depicted as mechanical relics undergoing a process of both incremental destruction and re-birth valued for entirely different reasons. The subjects become metaphors for themes of political expression commenting obliquely on possession and dispossession; capitalism and poverty; responsible use and profligate waste.

A vivid palette creates an intense energy in the paintings, mirroring the activity of the graffiti artists who have 'occupied' the train's spaces. There is a sense of struggle, resistance and the voiceless being given a means of expression (the act of putting the images into a gallery setting also elevates the status of the images from grungy rubbish to pop art).

Although primarily working as a painter at present, Paterson is also exploring other concepts in digital formats, sculpture and photography. The many strands of his collected imagery will give rise to new series in the future, continuing his exploration of the myriad points at which mainstream society intersects with the ever-present but overlooked elements in our community.

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