Artist Patrick Biesty displays in Unity Gallery

LAFAYETTE — Unity of Sussex County is currently featuring, Patrick Biesty of Sparta, in their Gallery of Artists. His framed paintings and portfolio will remain on display now through the end of January 2018.
The artist was fortunate to grow up in a family in which children were encouraged to draw, paint and sketch. As a youngster, Patrick attended a workshop at the Brooklyn museum that afforded children the opportunity to draw the beautiful Japanese bridges, tea houses and koi ponds in the botanical gardens attached to the museum. This early experience led to an amateur’s interest in art, especially after viewing the museum’s great watercolor collection of Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent.
Although Patrick occasionally took academic art courses and dabbled in oil painting, he only turned to painting watercolors in 1996 after working with Sussex County artist Toni Chaplin. He subsequently became a dedicated student of watercolors, attending workshops throughout the eastern seaboard. He displayed his watercolors at the Dru Christ Gallery in Sparta. He also showed at two Jersey shore galleries, the Watermark in Tuckerton and the Tumblety-Howell Gallery in Ocean Grove. Now, as an accomplished professional artist, he was the featured exhibitor at the 2017 New Jersey State Fair in Augusta.
In 2015 he won best watercolor at the SCA&HC Skyland’s juried show. Patrick’s artwork depicts local scenes of Sussex County, its buildings and barns, and boating and ocean vistas of the Jersey shore. He also does house and animal portraits.
The artist states “I feel strongly that a painting should tell a story that allows the viewer to enter the finished work. The best paintings make us part of the scene. That inspiration comes from experiences looking at good art. I always feel when I view Homer’s painting, The Gulf Stream, that I’m on that small boat with the surviving sailor.
Unity of Sussex County, located on 25 Mudcut Road in Lafayette, is an open spiritual community fostering creative expression. Local artists and photographers wishing to display and sell their work in its Gallery should contact wendystamer@yahoo.com.