NEW YORK, NY.- Pattern runs deep in the cultural fabric of the human race. The oldest depictions of patterns are crisscrossed lines and the outlines of human hands on Ancient cave walls. At a site like Cuevas de las Manos, Río Pinturas in Argentina, a layered alternation of earth pigments and repeated hand shapes produce a visual rhythm that echoes all the way from Prehistory to the Present; stimulating vibrations in the back of our eyes that lay a nonlinear and nonliteral order over Ancient rock. Today an amazing variety of patterns, with all sorts of cultural connotations, crackle across our metal, drywall, and polyester, singing with the same old-time music of repetition and alternation. Everywhere, pattern gives meaning and mystery to undefined space, and continues to light up the human mind.

Pattern must provide an intangible that no human culture can live without. Why else would we continue to use it to liven up dwellings, to activate outfits, to decorate our precious little objects, to tell each other stories, and to bring us face to face with the almighty power of Spirit, Universe, God? The persistent and enduring nature of pattern is both quotidian and transcendent.

For artists, the process of inscribing patterns on surfaces, directly manipulating warp and weft, or bringing preexisting patterns side by side is akin to Prayer. The careful act of repeating and altering has an effect on the creator's mind that serves to dislodge them from their individuality, their sense of self, or Ego. This ritualism, inherent to patterning, distinguishes it from other creative acts.

Prayer / Pattern / Prayer connects a group of eight artists who all partake in the prayer of pattern; but who each draw from distinct cultural and material vocabularies. The purpose of the exhibition is to look at what contemporary approaches to pattern share in common, and to provide a space in which we can better appreciate differences in the way that living artists relate to a profound and timeless practice.

-Jan Dickey, Winter 2025