3-Minute Interview: Patrick Madden

SAN FRANCISCO (Map, News) - The artist, who splits his time between San Francisco and New York, will have his paintings of San Francisco featured at the Hyde Street Gallery for six weeks starting Thursday.

What about San Francisco inspires you? It’s such a sensual city. The visuals are very intense, and the people are very intense.

After your art goes up, do you sneak back to see what people say? I will stand across the street there sipping a beer, and I watch people react to it.

When you come back to San Francisco from New York, what’s the first thing you notice? New York has seasons, and in San Francisco we have 57 degrees. I think that constancy is in some ways part of its beauty.

When people from around the country see your images of San Francisco, what’s their first reaction? It’s a city that is loved by everybody, in New York, the people in Europe, when I show them paintings of San Francisco, it reminds them of their trip there, what they did there, how they fell in love there.

What is unique about San Francisco and its inspiration for you? When I come here, I’ll see an old man and an old woman holding hands, and I’ll know that they haven’t held hands in years, but when they come to San Francisco there’s a romance to it that seems to come out.

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