Pat McCabe

Pat McCabe’s painting practice is rooted in close observation, memory and her personal responses to the environment around her. After studying Fine Art at Nottingham Trent University, where she achieved a BA (Hons) in Fine Art, she developed a predominantly abstract approach, working mainly in oils and acrylics. Her paintings begin with visual and emotional impressions gathered from her surroundings, which she translates into abstracted forms, colour and gesture. Rather than seeking to reproduce what she sees literally, Pat allows her responses to become increasingly distilled, creating paintings in which colour, surface and mark-making become central to the work. Her practice reflects an intuitive engagement with place, experience and memory, allowing the original stimulus to evolve into something more personal and abstract.

Drawing, photography and collage form an important part of Pat’s working process, providing source material that can be revisited, fragmented and transformed in the studio. Her sketchbooks act as a repository for observations, drawings and ideas, while photographs and collages offer further ways of exploring and reinterpreting her initial responses. As the work develops, she moves progressively further from the original reference, allowing recognisable elements to dissolve and making way for instinctive and intuitive decisions. This process of abstraction places colour and mark-making at the forefront, creating paintings that are spontaneous and expressive while retaining a subtle connection to the environments, memories and experiences that first inspired them.