SARASOTA, FLA.- Airidescence, a combination of abstract watercolor paintings, hanging ribbon sculptures and wire installations, is Anne Patterson’s first show at Alfstad& Contemporary. The work transforms the gallery into a multi-sensory realm where viewers experience Patterson’s integration of two worlds: art and music. The exhibition opens the evening of November 10, and runs through December 9.

Due to synesthesia, a neurological condition in which the stimulation of one sense causes an involuntary response to another sense, Patterson hears color and sees sound.

“I see an incredibly magnificence of colors and shapes when I hear music,” she says. “My art is my interpretation of the natural world, through paintings, sculptures and installations. I try to render my reality into physical forms, with no limitations, just possibilities.”

Installing her wire pieces at Alfstad& was not always easy, however. “Wire is inherently a rigid, straight and cold material,” Patterson admits. “Finding the warmth and the curve in it, shaping and molding it in response to music, well…at times that was difficult.”

Patterson responded to the challenge. “From the moment visitors enter the gallery their senses will open in unexpected ways,” says Sam Alfstad. “Patterson’s flowing ribbons and intricate wire shapes are beautiful, unique and striking.”

Patterson was recently named a winner of a prestigious CODA award for her installation Graced With Light – The Ribbon Project installation at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. CODA recognizes the best design projects that demonstrate the most successful integration of commissioned art into an interior, architectural or public space.

Patterson will be busy while in Sarasota. On November 4, a site-specific installation by the artist, Pathless Woods, will open the Keith D. and Linda L. Monda Gallery of Contemporary Art at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art. It continues the exploration into creating synesthetic environments that she began in 2013 with Graced With Light.

Based in New York, Patterson exhibits throughout the US and Europe. Her paintings and sculptures are not only in many private, public and corporate collections, she has created installations consisting of scenery, projections and lighting for major orchestras across the country, including the San Francisco and Atlanta Symphonies, Philadelphia, Chicago and American Symphony Orchestras and the New World Symphony in Miami.

Experienced in theatrical design, Patterson’s Graced with Light, a music-inspired installation, filled the vaulted ceiling arches of San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral with 20 miles of ribbon. She created The Light Between out of aluminum wire to heighten the natural light is an atrium in Boston. “I wanted to make light tangible,” she says. “Bring its joy and energy down to the ground level of the building.”

She was awarded a Creative Capital Grant from the Warhol Foundation, won the 2013 Gold Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year – Business Services, is a fellow of the Hermitage Artist’s Retreat and has been a visiting professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Education: B.A. Architecture, Yale University, M.F.A. Theater Design, The Slade School of Art, London UK.