Artist Patrick Eugène discovers his true calling in Atlanta.
Native New Yorker Patrick Eugène was living the life in his hometown with high-powered corporate jobs, including a finance gig with J.P. Morgan, and enjoying all the vibrant city has to offer. But by 2019, the glamour began to fade.
“My wife and I were having a great time but then began being intentional about slowing things down a bit, buying a home, having kids,” says Eugène. “She has family here, and we’d visited often, and we found something very attractive about the community.”
Eugène also wanted to refocus on his art, a career he launched in 2013 after leaving the corporate world. “I had picked up painting to offset the daily pressures of my job,” he says. “I’d come home from work and spend the rest of the evening in my bedroom, painting. I soon found I couldn’t stop doing it, so I left [my job]. That was 13 years ago.”
Atlanta also offered an advantage he couldn’t resist: a 2,500-squarefoot loft studio at the Goat Farm, a community of creatives on the Westside.
“Atlanta is a great place to grow, create and be an entrepreneur,” he says. “There’s opportunity here, and that has helped me focus on my art and what’s important.”
Eugène joined the Goat Farm just before COVID hit, and the timing was fortuitous. It gave him a work space beyond his home in Smyrna and a way to avoid isolation by connecting with other artists. “I went there every day and found all the creatives still in their spaces,” he says.
The self-taught artist had learned the basics from reading, watching documentaries and making frequent trips to museums. “I started by focusing on the perfect eyes and noses, but I was really fascinated with abstraction,” he says. “I experimented quite a bit with largescale works for about 10 years.”
But it was his move to the metro area that made a significant impact on his work.
“I didn’t find my voice until I moved to Atlanta and slowed things down,” he says. “I allowed myself to do something from my heart rather than trying to paint the perfect image, and I started doing figurative works by just allowing the paint brush to do what it does. So one arm may not be as long as the other, but there’s a soul, a feeling to it, and the world has really received that more than anything else I’ve done.”
The world has discovered Eugène’s oil and acrylic and mixed media works, along with some sculpture, through his representation in a Chicago gallery and in shows he’s staged in Mexico, Europe, Asia and Africa. He’s built a following through his collaboration with Dior for which he designed three special-edition handbags featured at the company’s stores in LA, New York, Paris and Miami, and that incorporate elements of leather, gold tones and pearls that reflect his Haitian heritage. In February, he was part of Art Basel Qatar and the Qatar Airways Creative 100.
When not globetrotting with his work, Eugène relishes the relaxation of being in Atlanta. He finds time to support his wife, Harryele, a chef, and his four sons, ranging from 1 to 20 years old.
“I get to treat my art like a 9-5 job,” he says. “In the mornings, I can drop the boys off and head right to the studio, work and come home for dinner. It’s a nice routine.”
PHOTO: Joann Vitelli
