Patricia Ayres Lives and works in New York, 1975 in New York, NY

Patricia Ayres’s works draw from structures of societal constraint such as the ritual morality of Catholicism, systems of incarceration in the United States, and ideals of the body. Informed in part by her education in fashion, the sculptures are shaped by Ayres’s process, elaborating upon her conceptual sources. 

She builds each sculpture by wrapping yards of elastic, slowly developing a corporeal form that is at once imposing and vulnerable. Many works are bound by latched harnesses or pierced with butchers’ hooks and affixed with parachute hardware, then stained with materials precious to her practice: anointing oil, sacramental wine, iodine, ink, and what she describes as “gunk.” Their coverings, between skin and garment, are stretched tight across their forms, both innate to the works and in struggle with their shape. 

Between her totemic figures, wall-mounted cocoons, and amorphous floor works, her sculptures hold an uncanny presence in the gallery. Ayres’s practice navigates anxiety, rebellion, and sexuality in a world created and stifled by its own influences. 

Patricia Ayres (b. 1975, New York, USA) lives and works in New York. 

Ayres attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2019. She received her MFA from Hunter College in 2018, BFA from Brooklyn College in 2015, and an AS degree in Fashion Design from the Fashion Institute of Technology in 1995. Her recent solo exhibitions include Though Poppies Grow, Mendes Wood DM, Brussels (2025); Unrequired Remnants, TANK, Shanghai (2024); Patricia Ayres, Matthew Brown Gallery, Los Angeles (2024); Singular Views: 25 Artists, Rubell Museum, Washington, DC (2023); Critical Mass, Mendes Wood DM, New York (2023); Patricia Ayres, Rubell Museum, Miami (2022); and Bound, Matthew Brown, Los Angeles (2021). 

Her recent group exhibitions include Ignite our skin, Sculpture Center, Queens, NY (2025); 12th SITE Santa Fe International, curated by Cecilia Alemani, Santa Fe (2024); Fresh & Flowers: Made in America,  NoName Creative Projects, Paris (2023); House in Motion / New Perspectives, de la Cruz Collection, Miami (2023); Field of Vision,  Zuzeum, Riga (2023); New Full and Pure: Body, Materiality, Gender, Green Family Art Foundation, Dallas (2023); Esfíngico Frontal, Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo (2023); Together, at the Same Time, de la Cruz Collection, Miami (2022); Matter & Form, The Bunker Artspace, West Palm Beach (2022); Some Kind of Monster Roster, Analog Diary, Beacon (2022); This Basic Asymmetry, Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara (2022); Reflections Part 3: Sculpture by Women Artists, Workplace, London (2022); and Entering a Song, Koenig & Clinton Gallery, New York (2019). 

Ayres was recently Artist-in-Residence at UrbanGlass Fellowship, New York (2023) and Dieu Donné Workspace Program, New York (2022). Her previous residencies and fellowships include Shandaken: Storm King Sculpture Park, Catskill (2022); Fountainhead, Miami (2022); Monira Foundation, Jersey City (2021); Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program, New York (2019); Lower Manhattan Cultural Center: Su-Casa, New York (2020); The Studios at MASS MoCA, North Adams (2019). Ayres received a NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in Sculpture/Craft, New York (2020) and was a Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Grant Nominee, New York (2019).