The Interior Worlds of Nick Patten

PROVINCETOWN MAGAZINE July 21, 2022 by G.W. Mercure

When artist Nick Patten was packing up his own Patten Gallery in Chatham, Mass., in 2004, one of the first calls he made was to Marla Rice at the Rice Polak Gallery.

“It was one of the greatest things that has ever happened to me,” he says. Patten had only a moment to introduce himself. “I know who you are,” Rice said to him. “And if you’re calling for the reason I think you’re calling, the answer is ‘Yes.’” Rice adds a detail about the exchange that Patten may not know: “I did a little dance,” she says. “Nick had an excellent reputation throughout the Cape. His work was stunning and completely different from anything else that was in the gallery, and at that point in my career it really elevated the level of art that I was showing…He is an extremely serious, professional, and hard-working artist. I purchased one of Nick’s paintings and it is one of my most treasured pieces.”

Breathe (oil on panel 24 x 20”)

This year, Patten marks thirty years of painting. In a tidy kiss of kismet, the Rice Polak Gallery also passes the three-decade threshold this year. The relationship between Rice Polak and Patten has been fruitful and mutually satisfying. “I keep saying that it is a lucky dream,” says Rice of her thirty-plus years in business.

During those thirty years, the obsessively detailed, slightly romantic realist has grown in ability—although his work has always been strong—and reputation. The shift from owning and maintaining his own gallery to showing with Rice Polak was necessary, especially as he cared a great deal more about creating the work than selling it.

“It was a working gallery. It was my studio,” he says. “And I was trying to work and I kept getting interrupted.” Those pesky people popping in to purchase his paintings were not only interrupting his work, but his learning. “I’m a completely self-taught painter,” he says. “I don’t recommend it! It’s about the worst way to go about it!”