Patricia Kalidonis
Co-founder
She | Her | Hers
Philadelphia, PA | Occupying the unceded lands of the Lenni Lenape peoples
Artist Statement
I paint using abstracted, layered imagery as a way to express my lived experience as a Disabled, neurodivergent woman. Heightened sensitivity to sensory input creates a cacophonous world. And while many others think in some form of language-based monologue, my thoughts are instead a continuous stream of images. Overlapping, colorful images in my work reflect my thought processes and sensorial experiences.
Overall, I’m keen to examine subjects such as social connectedness, family bonds, isolation, and solitude through the lens of neurodivergence and Disability culture. I use personal experiences with estrangement, loss, recovery, and resilience to investigate the importance of community and social support systems. As my art practice develops, I’m especially interested in exploring the dynamics between disabled bodies and social relationships, while also using disability “accommodations” to both create accessible presentations of my work and discuss our societal biases around “normative” bodies and forms of communication.
| Image Description: A vibrantly colorful mixed media artwork depicting a group meeting over zoom. On the bottom half, small squares containing multicolored, fragmented faces tightly surround the upside-down, and partly obscured image of a white woman, as she puts the weight of her chin on the palm of her hand. Above, colliding outlines of several people shown from just the shoulders up mix with the sideways drips of bright baby blue paint. |
Artist Bio
Patricia Kalidonis is an artist currently based in Philadelphia, on land originally occupied by the Lənape Haki-nk (Lenni-Lenape) peoples. She grew up mostly in California, primarily in the Bay Area. Since then, she has called many cities home, including Toronto, Albuquerque, Chicago, Portland (OR) and New York City; she thinks of herself as simultaneously from all of these places, and from no place at all.
Patricia attended OCAD University in Toronto from 2008 to 2009 and earned her BFA from Portland State University in 2019. She is currently a MFA candidate at Temple University, where she is also pursuing a graduate certificate in Disability Studies.
In addition to being an artist, Patricia has worked as an arts leader for a variety of organizations, including serving as Gallery Director of Littman + White Galleries at Portland State University from 2017 to 2019. She is the founder and co-director of Socially Distant Art, a digitally-engaged artist residency program that launched in March 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 lockdowns.
Artwork + Blog Posts
Socially Distant Art Exhibitions + Projects
