Biography

Patricia Rhoden Bartels is both an artist and art instructor with more than 40 years’ experience. Her extensive art education includes a Masters of Art (MA) and a Masters of Fine Art (MFA). She attended the Toledo Museum School of Design, Bowling Green State University and the University of Hawaii.

Rhoden, as she is known in the art world, has paintings acquired for permanent art museum collections across the nation including: Birmingham, Alabama, Indianapolis, Indiana and Fort Wayne, Indiana. She is the recipient of numerous prestigious grants and awards including the National Endowment of the Humanities Foundation, Fulbright–Hayes Foundation, and Eli Lilly Endowment Foundation. A highly sought after artist, Patricia's works can be seen hanging in major corporations and private collections, including Eli Lilly, Indiana University, Indiana University Kelly School of Business and J.D. Byrider.

She has won numerous awards, and her work is part of permanently collections at the Indiana State Museum, the Evansville Museum, the Fort Wayne Museum of Art and the Civil Rights Museum in Birmingham Al.

Painting both en plein air and in her studio, Patricia’s oil and acrylic paintings celebrate the exceptional beauty of nature inspired by living deep in the woods and rugged hills of Brown County, Indiana. Her award winning paintings record her observations of seasonal changes with vivid and passionate expressions color. Patricia’s loose slashing brush stokes give rise to a form of sensual movement carrying the eye across the canvas. Rhoden’s impasto brush work and palette knife techniques create textural touches of intense color vibrations. Focusing on changes in light and atmosphere, Rhoden’s goal is to create and experience, capturing a moment in time for the observer. 

Patricia’s Landscape Paintings - The Hoosier landscape is central to Patricia’s work, the rolling hills of Southern Indiana inspire much of her landscape paintings. She has won numerous awards including Outstanding Landscape in 2014 & 2015 at the Hoosier Salon, Indiana’s premiere competitive art show. Her Cityscapes and Winterscapes reflect different surroundings. The light and vibrant reflective color of a winter landscape inspired Rhoden’s First Place award winning painting at the Indianapolis Museum of Art’s Indiana Artists’ competitive show.

Patricia’s work is distinguished by her gold and silver-leafed ornate painting technique. Shape and color inspire her and are more important to her than recognizable subjects. “My paintings are a celebration of the exceptional beauty of nature, represented in vibrant broken color,” Patricia says. “Slashing emotional brush strokes and scintillating, vibrating colors follow the movements of thick paint applied in the impasto technique, which creates flickering touches of light and color.”

Patricia has painted several series with Anti-War and Dignity in Death themes. Through her narrative paintings she aspires to express her beliefs and convictions. One such series of seven paintings is housed in the Civil Rights museum in Alabama. Rhoden expresses the importance of these works stating, “I use my art as a sounding board. It gives me an opportunity to express my concerns openly and publicly. My art then becomes thought provoking for the observer.”