. A R T I S T . B I O G R A P H Y .

“Painting isn’t merely a passion for me; it’s a necessity. My goal is to compose a unique vision of nature’s beauty; often something I find fleeting and only momentary. Spending a lifetime on the river and outdoors is my advantage as a painter, but simply seeing something worth capturing is the easy part, attaining the skill s to translate this into the paint on canvas is the life long process. No one is born with the talent of an accomplished oil painter, it is earned through hours of painting and observation.”
Patrick’s paintings have reached private collectors around the world from Texas to the U.K.. In 2014, Patrick was featured in South West Art Magazine’s coveted “21 Under 31” article detailing young artists with promising careers.
Patrick currently strikes a dreamlike balance between his two passions; art and angling. It was his love of fly-fishing that brought him to landscape painting. Patrick’s art education includes his BFA at Western State Colorado University, where he studied printmaking, coursework abroad in Florence, Italy, and a painting workshop with nationally recognized painter Don Sahli. After graduating, he found himself out of the studio and back in the wilderness, working as a fly-fishing guide in the Gunnison Valley. Landscape painting had never appealed to him until he was fortunate enough to spend nearly every waking hour surrounded by the untouched beauty of the Gunnison Drainage and the West Elk Mountains. The magnificent images and scenes he witnessed while working in the outdoors also inspired him to explore a new medium, oil painting.
In 2011, Duke was inducted into the Oil Painters of America Society. His work can be seen at the Paragon Gallery in downtown Crested Butte, CO. Patrick has called Crested Butte home for over a decade now, and when he isn’t in his studio or painting in the field, you may find him in any one of his favorite fishing holes on the Gunnison River.
Meditate on a Patrick Duke landscape, just as he did the place that inspired it if it resonates with you, then he has succeeded as a conduit of natures’ true expression.