About

Driven to be a poet, I spent my younger years writing volumes of poetry, studying Plato by a nearby waterfall in the park and getting my Masters in Humanities.   But, something happened in my last 6 credits towards my degree…..I took an art class.  In that class, somehow in over my head I managed to  put my poetry into paint.  My professor encouraged me to pursue art further and from there I took off to New Mexico to study color and form  in the desert at Ghost Ranch.   Later, I sold my life savings which was land in Colorado to go to The Art League and was fortunate enough to study under Wolf Kahn and Abert Handell.  Wolf Kahn would show us his pastels in a little cigar box and when asked if he was worried they’d break he’d say….”I have lots of chalk”.  Handell would incourage us to paint what we love and if we loved the ocean…live there.  He loved the woods. I learned spontinaity and passion from both of them.

 I had a studio in Chinatown, DC before it was chic.  The building was actually “condemned” but it served many artists before they “renovated” the community. I did get to experience the “starving artist” life with rice and soup for lunch and cookies for dinner.

 

A free spirit, I will never be pinned down to a “style” or “subject matter”.   Art is breathing.  Each canvas offers an opportunity for that spontaneous breath of creativity

 Art always has a story but it shouldn’t be explained.  It either speaks to the viewer or it doesn’t and if it doesn’t that’s ok….it’s not for them.  When a painting speaks to a viewer, it is theirs and they will never get it out of their mind till they bring it home. Truly, every painting  has a home, a person that will connect, as if it was painted just for them. 

I paint “the mystery”.   I only see a part of the painting, the viewer who makes the painting it’s home tells me the rest.  That may be the best thing about the process, the connection!

 

Many , or most, of the time, I start a painting with an idea, but the painting itself takes on it’s own direction and I give way.  Sometimes theirs a struggle, other times I’m ok with it. In the end, the painting wins and I wait to see what’s next.  

 

A magazine article written about me referred to me as  “painting with a poet’s soul” and it’s true.  I am closest to my work when I can step into it, become a part of it and it holds me captive till we’re done.  I always leave beginning marks that I make on the canvas in my painting to show the journey. 

 

I have painted series of works and then …boom…something catches me …a sunset on a highway or a person in a café alone and I’m off the series and on to that.  “I’m all over the place “ and I don’t ‘apologize.  I’m living in the present and my work is present.  Some paintings come right off the canvas in “a minute” and others take years and even retakes 10 years later.  So, there is no…”how long did this painting take you answer”.

 

Recently I had a woman contact me about a poem she had written about one of my paintings.  The highest compliment.  I am thankful to paint, to communicate and in a way to serve the mystery.

The Above photo is me painting en plein air in the colza fields of France.  I received a grant to paint at Chateau Equeavaux Art Residency. 2019

Below are two articles.  One is the "Painting with a Poet's Soul" and the other a review of my artwork in the NYC Show "Beneath the Surface" 

ARTis Spectrum Magazine, “A Chelsea Perspective  NYC ,  Review of "Beneath The Surface" Show. Agora Gallery 

  A lively palette and energetic brushwork are the hallmarks of Patricia Fabian's work. Scenes of simple satisfactions captivate Fabian’s creative mind, because amongst such peaceful moments is when we expose our most human essence. “There is always chaos and quiet in the application of the paint, because life is a patch quilt of both. And in all that’s turbulence of the world, there is that one still captured moment that tells the story of a person’s life." Fabian’s subjects will often remain distant from the viewer or even slightly mysterious in order to present them as characters placed in an unfolding sequence of events. Stylistically her creamy, impasto application of oil paint recalls the work of Pop artist Wayne Thiebaud and adds a palpable vivacity to her imagery. Patricia Fabian has been very successful in exhibiting her work around the United States, from New York to Los Angeles, as well as selling to private collectors and institutions. Fabian holds both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from University of Tulsa with post-graduate studies in Virginia and

 

Resent One Person Shows

2025 June 2025 -Quinlan's Bailey Gallery Patricia, Christina and Jessie Fabian  Mother/Daughter Perspectives

2025 April 25, 5-7pm "The Apple Doesn't Fall Far From...."  The Vault, Gainesville GA

2024  August 13  "Introductions" Gallery on the Square, Gainesville, GA

2023  August 17-Oct 4 "A Moment in Time"   Quinlan Visual Arts Center, Gainesville, GA

2022  August 4-30 "Summer Wind" Beauregard Fine Art, Rumson NJ

2022 July 2-29  "Coastal Collection"  The Studio Gallery, Darien, GA

2021 August - "New Inverness, Life and Legacy on the Altamaha River", Reinike Gallery, Atlanta GA

2019 April - "American Artists at Chateau Orquevaux" Beauregard Fine Art, Rumson NJ

2018  September 16-November 1 "French Connections" Reinike Gallery, Atlanta, GA

2017  May 6- June 5 "Passages" Beauregard Gallery, Rumson NJ

 

 

Public Collections 

Chateau Orquevaux, France
Brenau University, Gainesville, GA
Bob and Red Buisson International Art Collection, with a painting that won First Place, as judged by Alexandra Skliris curator of the High Museum,of Art, Atlanta, GA
Art Curator - Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC
Philip Masters Intersal Headquarters - Explorer/Discovered Black Beards Boat. Presented at Awards Ceremony NYC
USTA United States Tennis Association - National Headquarters in Atlanta, GA
Kevin Costner’s movie, “Draft Days”
"Hawaii 5-0" Set Design
"Sticky Notes" Set design
CBS “Playing House” Decorating Show
Anne and Henry Zarrow Foundation – Tulsa, OKPrivate/Public Collections