Ebony G. Patterson (b. 1981) born in Jamaica and based in Chicago, Patterson uses ornament, pattern, and layered materials to speak to themes of race, visibility, violence, and transformation, specifically as they intersect with Black and queer experiences.

In …BENT… AND RIPPLED…, Patterson constructs a lush but fractured tableau: insects flutter across torn paper and printed floral motifs, forming a tapestry that is both seductive and unsettling. Beauty here is not an escape; it is a witness. The roaches and butterflies are not just decoration; they are memorials. They mark lives overlooked, erased, or discarded. The work is in a beautiful conversation with Hirst butterfly pieces where both of them reflect the fleeting time and the cycle of life.

This piece is part of her ongoing “garden” series: imagined spaces where beauty meets violence, and ornament becomes a language of grief and resistance. With theatrical scale and poetic force, Patterson offers a meditation on survival and the quiet, complicated power of being seen.

Patterson was awarded the MacArthur Foundation's Genius Grant in 2024, and fellowships including the David C. Driskell Prize (2023); Tiffany Foundation Grant (2017), the United States Artist Award, Painter and Mixed Media Artist (2018) and the Joan Mitchell Foundation Art Grant (2015). Her work is in the public collections of The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; the High Museum, Atlanta, GA; and Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY, among others. Recent exhibitions include Art Basel Miami Beach (2024), EXPO Chicago (2024), and her major solo show at the New York Botanical Garden (2023). In 2025, the Speed Art Museum will present her first career retrospective.