Curtis Patterson — Persistent Vision, Sculptures from 2011 – 2026
A Shreveport native returns to Louisiana with fifteen years of bronze and steel sculpture drawn from African diasporic motifs and the rhythms of jazz.
Curtis Patterson works with what was handed to him. Rhythms from jazz. Symbols carried across the Atlantic and kept alive for generations. He does not quote these traditions. He extends them and keeps them moving.
Patterson came of age in Louisiana during the civil rights era, and that experience continues to inform his sculpture. He was born in Shreveport in 1944 and has lived and worked in Atlanta most of his life. In the studio, jazz gives him his method: he sets a structure in bronze or steel, then bends and tests it until instinct carries it somewhere new, a freedom abstraction allows. The forms, released from resemblance, become visual metaphors steeped in history and cross-cultural exchange.
Persistent Vision brings together more than fifteen years of work. The Rocker series, begun in 2011, balances motion and stillness in interlocking forms. Diasporic Reflections (2021) presents mask-inspired wall reliefs exploring transformation and personal expression. Shango’s Friends (2025–26) draws on Yoruba symbols such as the double axe and double iron. A Great Migration (2024–25) gathers these threads in stainless steel, named for the twentieth-century movement of African Americans out of the South.
His monumental public sculptures stand from Shreveport to St. Paul. He also gave three decades to the classroom at the Atlanta College of Art, shaping generations of artists. The same generosity runs through the sculpture, which carries its traditions forward.
Persistent Vision is Patterson’s first museum exhibition in his home state. Guest curated by independent curator Melissa Messina, Patterson’s former student.
About Curtis Patterson
Curtis Patterson was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1944 and lives in Atlanta. The grandson of a master carpenter, he studied art education at Grambling State University and was the first African American to earn an MFA in sculpture from Georgia State. He taught at the Atlanta College of Art from 1976 to 2007, and his public sculptures stand in cities nationwide. In 2024 he received the Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson Award from the Georgia Museum of Art.
Curtis Patterson, Hymn to Freedom (Rocker Series), 2025. Courtesy of the artist and Laney Contemporary. © Curtis Patterson.
Curtis Patterson, Cold Front (Rocker Series), 2021. Courtesy of the artist and Laney Contemporary. © Curtis Patterson.
Curtis Patterson, Monk’s Moods (Rocker Series), 2018. Courtesy of the artist and Laney Contemporary. © Curtis Patterson.
Curtis Patterson, July (Diasporic Reflections Series), 2021. Courtesy of the artist and Laney Contemporary. © Curtis Patterson.
