Patter Hellstrom is a San Francisco-based artist who has shown her work internationally and is part of many private and public collections including the Pfizer Art Collection, JP Morgan Chase Art Collection and the Natong Museum in China. Patter holds a degree from the University of Wisconsin/ Milwaukee. She has received grants and awards throughout her extensive career as an artist including a NEA Award, San Francisco Museum of Art SECA Award Nominee, National Endowment for the Arts and the Rockefeller Foundation. 

Hellstrom's abstract and prismatic works invoke the beauty of calligraphic brush painting. Through acrylic ink and a slick polypropylene surface, Hellstrom unlocks a current of color and emotion as she walks the tight rope between balance and chaos. The artist’s loose brushwork and lush color palette are offset by subtle centerlines or focal points that guide and anchor the flowing pigments. While much of Hellstrom’s process relies on media and chance, she searches
for stability or a meditative moment within each piece. This is in relation to the stability one searches for while traversing through the twists and turns of daily life. Wells of color sprout, splash and explode across the structural lines and a lustrous surface as an emotional response is imparted onto the viewer. Encompassing themes of impermanence, compassion, stability, and interdependence, the centerlines hold despite disruptions of splashed color and textured brushwork, suggesting stability within chaos and a curious interdependence between two forces.

Hellstrom’s loose and confident brushwork emphasizes the beauty of a simple stroke. Coupled with her liberal use of vibrant colors, Hellstrom’s works recall Asian calligraphic traditions that inspire the artist. She studied brush painting with a master painter in Nantong, China. India influenced her palette, as she traveled to remote villages in Bihar as a guest artist at the Mithila Art Institute, twenty miles from the Nepal border. Subsequently, both regions and cultures
have made a lasting impression on Hellstrom’s art practice.