Ken Pattern Low Tide – Spanish Banks

Ken Pattern was born in 1942 in New Westminster, B.C., and lives in Vancouver. After graduating from Maple Ridge high school he spent four years traveling around the world. Upon his return to Canada he attended Vancouver Community College (1968) and later transferred to Simon Fraser University (1968-70) where he majored in Sociology. In 1970 he joined SPEC (Society for Pollution and Environmental Control), one of the earliest environmental groups in Canada, to work as a graphic artist. Ken left SPEC three years later to pursue fine art and held his first exhibition in 1978 at the Vancouver public library. This was followed by an exhibition at Paperworks in Vancouver, a commercial gallery, and each subsequent exhibition provided funds to continue creating art until the next show. In 1979 Ken enrolled at Emily Carr College of Art and Design where he majored in printmaking. At the same time he joined Malaspina Printmaker’s Society and worked in the Malaspina workshop producing hand drawn lithographs for more than 30 years. In 1985 his wife, Helen, had the opportunity to manage a project in China and Ken followed spending two and a half years in Beijing. While there Ken, a founding member of the Northwest Print Council (NPC), arranged an exchange exhibition for NPC members and printmakers associated with the Central Fine Arts Academy of Beijing. Shortly after return from China in 1988 Helen’s work took her to Jakarta, Indonesia where Ken and Helen lived until 2019 with Ken continuing to work as a full-time artist: painting and drawing in Indonesia and spending a few months most years at Malaspina creating lithographs. Ken’s art has been shown in many solo and group exhibitions in Asia, Europe and North America and is held in both public and private collections. His detailed and intricate work covers a wide range of topics from urban and rural landscapes to surrealistic interpretations of scenes and events which concern him including environmental and social issues.

• 1983 (131)
• blue (243)
• land (82)
• lithograph (1719)
• marine (108)
• red (159)
• yellow (140)