ARTIST'S STATEMENT

A LIFE IN MOTION
Patti Allen Akesson, known for paintings, prints, sculpture and encaustics that move with singular muscularity, started dancing professionally when she was six years old. Movement is in her blood, the unifying theme in all her creative work. As a toddler in Newport Beach, California, she learned to walk by standing on a floating surfboard. 

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Akesson’s mother, aunt and grandparents all sang and danced in vaudeville. Akesson’s mother, when she retired from the stage, used her artistic skills to draw for catalogs, make ceramics and create a variety of fine art. That same versatile creativity was passed on to Akesson. Early on, she realized that creative exposure was intuitively ingrained in her own desire for some form of kinetic, visual and tangible movement.

Patti’s school years were filled with surfing competitions, the Los Angeles Junior Ballet, dance recitals and assisting local dance instructors. Her teaching skills were developed at this time and honed through the years in dance. Akesson performed throughout her early life in movies, on stage and in television. When Akesson embarked on her art career, teaching art came naturally. She currently teaches art in her studio in Sherman Oaks, California offering both private lessons and group workshops. She also teaches art in the public school system.

Patti Akesson’s active involvement in dance and the creative arts interrupted her formal education in the high school years. Despite this delay, she received her high school diploma through a correspondence course. She continued to pursue higher education, attending classes at the Otis/Parson Art Institute, California Art Institute (CAL ARTS) and Cal State Northridge, while eventually receiving her Associates Degree from Valley College. It was through these classes that she learned and experimented with a variety of artistic mediums all of which have influenced her development as a visual artist. 

Akesson’s art draws upon a continually growing list of mediums including drawing, printmaking, painting and encaustic. This latter medium, encaustic, which is painting with molten, pigmented wax, affords the ability of layering which Akesson has embraced most recently, and allowed her to “place figure upon figure, tree upon tree, and to create a sense of motion.” Akesson’s passion for movement is the driving force of her work. Her work pulses with life.

Patti Akesson, has endless vitality, and the ability to engage easily with others. She is involved with a wide range of artistic organizations including Women’s Caucus for the Arts (WCA), International Encaustic Association (IEA), LAXWAX, Group Nine - a collaborative group of nine artists working together for over twenty years, California Art Club, and the Encaustic Citizen Group. Her artwork has been featured in a range of publications including Artist of the Month, The Los Angeles Times, The Californian, The Hemet News, and the Valley Star.

Akesson continues to develop her unique art techniques, combining a variety of mixed mediums in brand new ways. Her work is always trailblazing, evolving as she experiments, taking risks. No matter how different one piece is from the next, Patti’s work is always recognizable. There is a twisting, punching, flowing, reaching and living center. Akesson’s love of dance and her appreciation of movement, part of her life and art from the beginning, remains her signature theme.