PADRAIC SOUTH

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(b. 1969) 

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Albany, NY

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Padraic South is an American contemporary artist known for his expressive, abstract-figurative paintings and drawings. South’s artistic apprenticeship began at birth. The son of a modern artist and scholar, he was immersed in the world of art from his earliest days. He briefly studied at Parsons in Paris and took a technical drawing course in college. However, his education was largely self-directed, shaped by a lifelong commitment to practice, exploration, and expression. Drawing, painting, writing, observing, failing, and beginning again were his true teachers.

 

As a child, South’s creative instincts were clear. He famously cried on his first day of school when he discovered painting wasn’t the only subject. In second grade, he drew his first nude, a crayon rendering his parents kept and continue to treasure. While his teacher disapproved, his family laughed and encouraged him. As South jokes, his style hasn’t changed all that much.

 

On the pragmatic advice of his father, South initially pursued a trade outside of art. He joined the Merchant Marine, an experience rich in story. He would go on to earn an economics degree from Northeastern University in Boston, where he spent more time sketching and people-watching than studying. Ultimately, South has always returned to the work. What matters most to him is the process: what he’s making today, tomorrow, or revisiting from yesterday.

 

In recent years, he has broken from representational style, moving toward  large-scale,expressive paintings executed on canvases spread across the floor of his studio. Using oil and enamel, he adopts a freer, more immediate approach, launching his scrolls — a series of abstract-figurative works that resist linear time and structure. These scrolls function as visual narratives. They are characterized by expansiveness and layers, alive with memory and motion. Drawing inspiration from traditional Chinese scrolls, these works unfold across time and space, capturing fleeting emotional landscapes rather than static scenes. Conceived during the isolation of the COVID-19 lockdown, the scrolls mark a pivotal shift in South’s practice, one that continues to evolve. 

 

South is currently based in Southern California and has worked in studios on both the East and West Coasts. His fluid surroundings subtly influence the rhythm and tone of his work. 

 

At the core of his artwork lies a deep preoccupation with time; not just its passage, but its erosion of all things: ego, memory, love, beauty, knowledge. Rather than dwell on loss, South’s paintings explore the slow dissolution of the self and the return to a shared, universal energy.

 

Nothing lasts forever, he reminds us. That truth shapes his work. And perhaps, that is exactly the point.