Patrick Dougher
Angels on the Block, collage and acrylic on paper, 18″ x 24″, 2017
Divine Fertility #1, acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 48″ x 60″, 2017
Knowledge and Power, diptych, acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 36″ x 48″, 2018
Little Boy Blues, acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 24″ x 30″, 2018
Tightrope, acrylic and mixed media on paper, 18″ x 24″, 2017
Submission II, acrylic on canvas, 24″ x 30″, 2018
God Sun, acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 16′ x 20′, 2017
God Above II, acrylic and silver leaf on canvas, 24″ x 30″, 2018
Artist Statement
My experience and culture influence my perspective on life, spirituality, and social justice. There is no separation between that perspective and my work.
As a self-taught artist, I think I am not particularly “sophisticated” about my approach to creating work. My art is a genuine expression of all that I am.
I am also a musician, a poet, and an avid reader. I have learned my craft by relentless practice and by studying at the feet of the masters. I maintain an attitude of curiosity, humility, and awe.
I was blessed to come of age during the late 1970s and 1980s. I was heavily influenced by the emergence of the Hip Hop, Punk Rock, and Rastafarian Reggae movements and the art and fashion that were attached to each. The commonality of these musical forms was a sense of culture and of honesty, rebellion, and innovation.
It is incredibly important, I think, for creative people to study the work of master writers and artists of all cultures and from different time periods to inform, influence, and inspire, and to form a foundation on which to build.
I don’t think my art is overtly political. My focus is really about bringing to light our Divine Nature, which goes deeper than politics. This in itself may be subversive and rebellious. With my art I hope to call attention to the fact that politics is a distraction from what is the true essence of the human experience, which, in my opinion, is to manifest spiritually.
About the Artist
Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Patrick Dougher is a self-taught fine artist, musician, poet, and actor.
Patrick Dougher has performed and recorded with Sade, the Grammy-award-winning Dan Zanes, and many others. He has played drums with many notable reggae artists, such as Black Uhuru’s Michael Rose, Steel Pulses’ David Hinds, and Hip Hop star Chuck D of Public Enemy. He also has played drums on The Dub Side of the Moon, one of the bestselling reggae LPs of all time.
Patrick Dougher has worked as an art therapist with HIV-positive children at Kings County Hospital, as a co-curator at the Museum of African Art, as a youth counselor and teaching artist at Project Reach and Studio in a School, and, most recently, as the program director of Groundswell, New York City’s premier community mural arts organization, where he oversaw and directed more than 300 public mural projects throughout the city. Currently, Patrick Dougher works as the interim director of education for BRIC Arts Media and as a freelance consultant to The Center for Court Innovations. For more than 20 years, Patrick Dougher has used the arts to empower and support the socio-emotional growth of at-risk and disenfranchised youth of the city.
Patrick Dougher’s art reflects his life’s mission to inspire and empower by honestly and fearlessly holding up a mirror to society’s inequities and injustices. He seeks to celebrate through his art the noble beauty and divine spirituality of people of African descent and to connect urban African-American culture to its roots in sacred African art and ceremony.
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