Interior Garden
Toby Paterson
The Modern Institute (Bricks Space)
Installation view, Toby Paterson, Interior Garden, The Modern Institute, Bricks Space, Glasgow, 2024. Courtesy of The Artist and The Modern Institute/ Toby Webster Ltd., Glasgow.
Toby Paterson, Over Marin, 2024, Acrylic on Aluminium, 88 x 92 x 5 cm. Courtesy of The Artist and The Modern Institute/ Toby Webster Ltd., Glasgow.
Toby Paterson, The Crossing, 2024, Acrylic on Aluminium, 34 x 64 x 3 cm. Courtesy of The Artist and The Modern Institute/ Toby Webster Ltd., Glasgow.
Toby Paterson, Breakfast in Madrid, 2024, Acrylic on Aluminium, 97 x 110 x 5.5 cm. Courtesy of The Artist and The Modern Institute/ Toby Webster Ltd., Glasgow.
Toby Paterson, Penumbral Park 2, 2024, Acrylic on Aluminium, 116 x 120 x 5cm . Courtesy of The Artist and The Modern Institute/ Toby Webster Ltd., Glasgow.
Interior Garden
Toby Paterson
15.11.2024 – 15.01.2025
Light, colour, and texture – these qualities of place, recalled through memory, form the basis of Toby Paterson’s practice. The exhibition title, ‘Interior Garden’, speaks to the themes of reflection, solace and memory which define this new body of paintings, marking a turn away from the complex installations and assemblages which defined his earlier work. Gone are the historical frameworks and overt architectural references, and in turn more poetic compositions present themselves.
The works were made specifically for the Bricks Space and are intended to function within its unique disrepair. The gallery operates as a kind of cloistered zone and geometry and colour are Paterson’s lexicon, functioning as a cypher for his subjectivity. Each work arises from a generative process of drawing and painting. The consistent use of graphic form allows for a sensitivity to build up – an awareness of the effects of colour and proximity of line. The works are an attempt to make memory material, to transpose an emotion or a reckoning with place into paint. Often this reckoning involves the artist considering a relationship to a site that he has visited multiple times over the years. Ones that have become points of return, places of acute feeling. Emotions brought to a particular site enmesh with its spatial and visual qualities. The works are not narrative in this sense but seek to produce an analogue of Paterson’s experiences, while remaining open to interpretation.
Selected solo exhibitions include: ‘SECTORS’, Zembla Gallery, Hawick (2023); ‘Atlantic’, The Modern Institute, 3 Aird’s Lane, Glasgow (2020); ‘New Aluminium Works’, Stallan-Brand, Glasgow (2019); ‘Two Arrays’, Cairn Gallery, Fife (2018); ‘Penumbralism’, Civic House, Glasgow (As part of Glasgow International 2018); ‘Thresholds’, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, Edinburgh (As part of Edinburgh Art Festival, 2015); ‘Soft Boundary’, The Modern Institute, Glasgow (2014); ‘Toby Paterson – Clusters’, Galerie Lange + Pult, Zurich (2013); ‘Reconstructions’, Mário Sequeira Gallery, Braga (2013); ‘Quotidian Aspect’, Le Grand Cafè, Saint-Nazaire (2012); ‘Consensus and Collapse’, Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (2010); ‘Generosity’, Stroom Den Haag, The Hague (2007); ‘After the Rain’, Barbican Centre, London (2005); ‘An Isometric Plan’, Tate St Ives, Cornwall (2004); and ‘New Façade’, CCA, Glasgow (2003). As part of GENERATION 2014, a major touring solo exhibition of Paterson’s work travelled to Gracefield Arts Centre, Dumfries; Tweeddale Museum and Gallery, Peebles; Inverness Museum & Art Gallery, Inverness; Kirkcaldy Galleries, Kirkcaldy.
Paterson has also participated in group exhibitions worldwide, including at: The Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh (2024); Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow (2022); Holden Gallery, Manchester (2015); Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2012); MACM, Montreal (2010); The Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw (2009); Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade (2007); Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco (2006); and ICA, London (2002).
Paterson has realised several major public commissions, including those for Islington Council on City Road, London (2019); Chessels Court in Edinburgh for Edinburgh Art Festival; Commission for George Moore Building at Glasgow Caledonian University in Glasgow (2016); Stroom Den Haag, The Hague (2013); BBC Scotland Headquarters, Glasgow (2007) amongst others. Under the banner of charity Glasgow Urban Sports, Paterson, Raydale Dower and John Bailey are currently developing Devon Street Urban Park under the M74 motorway.
Photo credit: Patrick Jameson