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Patrick Bear (1964-) is a digital visual artist based out of San Francisco. His body of work is primarily photographic.
He studied fine art photography at San Francisco Academy of Art University prior to moving to the Bay Area around the turn of the century. He resided in the Pacific Northwest primarily in the rain forest of the Olympic Peninsula, and then metropolitan Seattle.
Patrick has also live in Florida and was born just outside of New Orleans. He has traveled extensively across the United States. He has dabbled in photography for a large part of his life, first in film as a boy. When it became available primarily stayed in the digital area of the medium.
A part of Patrick's story includes abuse as a child, as an adult he has dealt with alcohol and drug addiction as well as homelessness. Photography has helped him conquer the demons in his head. Instead of drinking or using drugs. He spends quite often a large part of his day wandering throughout San Francisco taking pictures, he never goes anywhere without at least one camera. He carries his office in
When he's not taking pictures he can be found at any number of coffee shops that have internet access.
He finds carrying his camera and focusing on things most people walk on past never noticing and seems to be entranced with very ordinary sights. He likes showing the viewer his perspective of the world through his eyes.
Patrick is absolutely obsessed with things such as reflections in shop windows, the puddles of water after a shower, umbrellas, fire escapes, and street art, just to name a few.
San Francisco so many things have been photographed by some amazing artists, Patrick prefers the depict the in a unique way through reflections in puddles as well as shop windows. The end resqult is a sometimes almost a confusing melange of what appears to be multiple images rich with color, shapes, shadows as well as vivid brightness. You must look very carefully sometimes to find surprising and unexpected things reflected back in the images reflected from across the street from the actual object being photographed.
He refers his newest body of work which is currently ongoing as "through the looking glass" taken from the adventures of Alice as she wanders through the mystical world of Wonderland. He work shows the observer a beautiful mystical view of the city in reflections one could tend to be lost in.