He hails from Texas, currently calls Brooklyn home and is married to fashion designer Rebecca Taylor. Here, we get to know artist Wayne Pate, who has a knack for beautifully graphic and linear abstract paintings.
The art bug bit when…
I was about five years old when I discovered my uncle’s record collection. The Beatles’ record sleeves were my favorite.
My very first art love…
The work Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring.
I’d best describe my signature style as…
The line in my work is very important and everything else works around that. Whatever the composition there is always focus on the relationship between the line and space, which then dictates use of color.
And how I came to it…
I come from a graphic design/illustration background so my work always has those underpinnings. Most of the time, the graphic nature dictates the outcome of a painting as opposed to the subject of the painting having the final say.
Favorite subjects to paint…
At the moment, floral, foliage, tropical foliage, nudes but in a very graphic line approach, and urns of Roman and Greek origins.
When I get the artist equivalent of writer’s block…
I move on to another idea that might be laying around or just start drawing something completely unrelated. I find problem-solving in my work comes from sketching something unrelated. Often that process will shift things around and expose a solution I hadn’t thought of.
Favorite creatives to follow on Instagram…
Oh, this is like the Oscars. So many people to mention but for answer’s sake: Richard Haines and Miguel Flores Vianna
A good work of art should always…
I hate to sound so cliche, but it should connect with you in some capacity.
And as an artist, I could never be without…
Something that can draw a line — burnt end of a stick, lipstick, a bloody finger, it doesn’t matter.