Ebony G. Patterson to speak at Sam Fox School’s 2025 Recognition Ceremony

“Ebony is an incredible visionary and a proud alum of our school,” said Carmon Colangelo, the Ralph J. Nagel Dean of the Sam Fox School. “Her expansive practice is intricate and powerful, while addressing societal issues and exuding visual pleasure. I look forward to welcoming her back to campus for what I’m certain will be an energizing, inspiring speech to our graduating class of 2025.”

Patterson was born in Jamaica and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Edna Manley College of Visual and Performing Arts before graduating from WashU with a Master of Fine Arts, where she focused on printmaking and drawing. She has since gone on to a thriving career exhibiting work in solo and group shows and teaching. Last year, she was among 22 individuals awarded a prestigious MacArthur “genius grant” by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

A multidisciplinary artist, Patterson’s densely layered, highly textured works pose questions about race, class, gender, power, care, life, and death. “I aim to elevate those who have been deemed invisible/un-visible as a result of inherited colonial social structures, by incorporating their words, thoughts, dress, and pageantry as a tactic to memorialize them,” Patterson shared in her artist statement. “It is a way to say: I am here, and you cannot deny me.”

A member of the Sam Fox School’s National Council since 2020, Patterson received one of the school’s 2018 Stone & DeGuire Contemporary Art Awards and 2011 Award for Distinction, as well as WashU’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 2021. Other awards include the David C. Driskell Prize, Tiffany Foundation Grant, United States Artist Award, and Joan Mitchell Foundation Art Grant.

Patterson’s work has been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art, National Gallery of Jamaica, National Gallery of Bermuda, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, 21c Museum and Foundation, Baltimore Museum of Art, New York Botanical Garden, Museum of Art and Design, Pérez Art Museum Miami, Studio Museum in Harlem, Kunsthal Aarhaus in Denmark, the Art Institute of Chicago, and more. She has taught courses at the University of Virginia, Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, the University of Kentucky, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2024, she was the first Susan Brennan Co-Artistic Director of Prospect New Orleans.

Further details on the Sam Fox School Recognition Ceremony, including how to access the livestream, will be available later this spring.