Kenzee Patterson

Kenzee Patterson is a settler-colonial descendant whose art practice combines material experimentation with historical research, autobiography and language. What connects Kenzee’s study of the past and the personal to a universal present is the imperative to confront the ecological and socio-cultural repercussions of resource extraction and material displacement.

The ethics and responsibilities this engagement entails are reflected in the evolving nature of his expanded sculptural practice, where material provenance is forensically evaluated, and the agential and creative potential of non-human objects and materials is acknowledged.

Patterson has been a practicing artist for over fifteen years, and during this time he has generated a number of solo exhibitions for regional galleries, artist-run initiatives (ARIs) and a commercial gallery, and he has been the founding director of two ARIs: Locksmith Project Space, Sydney (2007-2011); and Cosmopolitan Decline, Broken Hill (2018).

He has undertaken several international residencies and exchanges, including the NSW Visual Artist Residency at the Darling Foundry, Montréal in 2014. From 2016-2018 Kenzee completed a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) research degree at Sydney College of the Arts, the University of Sydney, for which he received an Australian Postgraduate Award. During the MFA in 2017 he undertook an International Exchange program at the Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna.

Writing is an important aspect of Kenzee’s creative process, and research from his solo exhibition at Lismore Regional Gallery A tree branches, so does a river (2016) contributed to his MFA research paper, and was developed into a lecture he delivered as part of a panel at the 2017 Art Association of Australia and New Zealand conference Art and its Directions, as well as being adapted into an article he published in un Magazine 12.1 (2018), titled Log somewhat overshadowed by utilitarian roof structure.

In 2019 Kenzee was invited to contribute writing to the online pamphlet Slug. The resulting text, Remember they’re rock reflected on his experience undertaking a major sculpture commission for ENTER (2019), the inaugural exhibition at Lyon Housemuseum Galleries in Melbourne. This text formed the basis for a lecture he delivered at the galleries as part of the 2019 WRITING & CONCEPTS lecture and publication series.