7 minute read
People to Watch: Patricia Kluwe Derderian
A series of small abstract paintings on her living room wall bring Patricia Kluwe Derderian back to her childhood home in a small town in Brazil. The figures are blurry and they have no faces, but each one represents a specific person. They appear swiftly painted in bright colors, as though snatched from a dream and quickly created before they disappear into the night.
Kluwe Derderian describes each scene in great detail – here is her mother and grandmother baking Easter pastries in the tiny kitchen, these are the adults gathered round for an evening of live samba music, this is the pantry where her grandmother stored the homemade fig jam.
Memories are something Kluwe Derderian specializes in. Her unique City Series paintings –vibrant, abstract street scenes of popular global cities like Paris, Barcelona, New Orleans, New York and even, yes, St. Petersburg – have become her trademark.
Private commissions from across the country are now part of her daily routine. Many represent a special vacation or moment in someone’s life, she says, so capturing the essence of that particular place and time is paramount.
Her city scenes often include recognizable landmarks and carrotshaped people forms (abstract) who are quite often walking their dogs. “I think that’s what makes a city alive,” says the 38-year-old artist in her slight Brazilian accent. “Empty places are sad to me. … I always had dogs growing up and I think they’re part of our cities now more than ever.”
Growing up, she loved to sketch and draw the people in her surroundings, but was always attracted to buildings. “I studied architecture and fell in love with cities,” she says. “Coming from a small town, when I visited cities I would think about the public. Not just the people, but the spaces and they are kind of magical. I thought of architecture as like an exterior thing, like how do you leave the space, how do you walk through it, with the light, how does it make you feel?
“I think architecture helped me see these things and fall in love with how the places are not just buildings — they each have a sense of place and a lifestyle. You know, it’s an experience actually being anywhere. And that’s what I love is the vibrancy of the cities. That’s what kind of inspires me.”
Architect to Artist
When a corporate job opportunity in the United States was offered to her husband, Mikael Derderian, they grabbed it and moved to Augusta, Ga. Kluwe Derderian felt the time was right to study art and absorbed herself in “as many drawing and painting courses as I could,” she relates. She started exhibiting paintings in small shows and was well received, which thrilled her. “I took my time taking art classes because I wanted to finally be an artist.”
In 2017, just after the birth of their first child Luca (she is also mother to 4-year-old Maya), Mikael was offered a transfer and the Derderians arrived in Tampa Bay, eventually moving into a home in the Countryside area of Clearwater. Kluwe Derderian set up a studio near a large window in the living room, with plenty of natural light and space to set up easels. She started painting and immersing herself in the local arts communities. Her abstract style became uniquely her own with broad, confident strokes and brilliant colors.
She feels her career really began in 2020 when she received an Emerging Artist Grant through Creative Pinellas, a non-profit organization that supports and mentors emerging artists. Quickly her colorful paintings drew attention. She became a Spotlight Artist at the Gasparilla Art Festival and was getting noticed by leaders in the Tampa Bay arts community who helped her with her career.
When Gulfport gallery owner Brenda McMahon discovered her exhibiting at the PAVA art show at the Gulfport Casino in 2020, she knew there was something special about the young artist. “I spotted her work right away, it was fresh, captivating and energetic. I loved it,” said McMahon. “I invited her to stop in and take a look at my gallery and we signed a contract for her first exhibition. She sold well from the beginning and she is still in demand.”
Brenda McMahon Gallery is the exclusive representative of Kluwe Derderian’s Original Painting City Series in the St. Petersburg area and McMahon helps mentor and work with client commissions as far away as New York, New Orleans and Great Britian.
In 2022, a solo exhibit at the Don Cesar Resort on St. Pete Beach organized through Creative Pinellas Beyond the Walls project so captivated visitors and hotel management that she was invited to become a resident artist. Her works of various tourist destinations around the world can be viewed (and purchased) in the lobby registration area.
More recently last February, Kluwe Derderian was the winner of the Morean Arts Center’s annual “ICONIC” fundraiser in which 15 local artists were given one day to fan out in downtown St. Pete,
painting and drawing the city from their own perspective. Kluwe Derderian’s engaging painting of Beach Drive won Best in Show and a solo exhibition at the Morean.
The Process
Each of her commissioned City Series paintings is an homage to a certain place and a time. The artist explains:
“I have an interview with the person and they talk to me about that place. Why is it important, the things that they love about it, maybe give me some stories, what happened there. I ask them to send me some pictures, even if it’s nothing to do with the place that they want, it can be pictures of the trip. This helps me look through their eyes, see the colors, the feeling … It helps me to kind of get inside their minds, I think, in my own way.”
A world traveler, Kluwe Derderian can draw from her own memories, too. She has visited many large cities across Europe and South America — Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Barcelona, London, Rome, Amsterdam, New Orleans, Chicago, New York.
“My husband is from France so we go to visit family there often,” she adds. “Many of the places, if I’ve been there, I have my own pictures that I took. I also do a lot of research online. Or if it’s close by, I just go again and I walk around and I take photos.”
When she is ready to begin, she compiles her favorite photos of the destination and starts sketching. Before she paints, she gets approval from the client so it matches their expectations. Her architecture background comes to the foreground as she sketches famous buildings and landmarks, cathedrals, bridges and towers.
Her paintings of downtown St. Pete are some of her favorites.
“I love St. Pete because it’s a walkable city, there’s movement, there’s little stores, restaurants. There’s always something happening. And a lot of people walking dogs!”
See artwork by Patricia Kluwe Derderian at patiart.weebly. com/ A solo exhibit of her work will be at Morean Arts Center July 13-August 16; opening reception is 5-8 pm July 13. A solo exhibit will be at Mirella Cimato Gallery, located inside St. Petersburg Opera Company Opera Central, 2145 1st Avenue S., September-October.
