Patrick Eugène

Patrick Eugène (born 1984) is an American painter of Haitian descent. His work depicts figures in domestic and social settings and addresses themes related to Haitian and Haitian-American life. Eugène is self-taught and has described a process that emphasizes intuition and working without traditional sitters or reference images. He has stated that he grew up surrounded by Haitian art and music in his family home, which later informed his use of color, rhythm, and visual motifs. Eugène has said he began drawing and painting at age 27 after years of working in non-art jobs, including finance, and after earlier involvement in music production and songwriting as a parallel creative outlet. He has also discussed making repeated trips to Haiti beginning after the 2010 earthquake, experiences he has described as shaping his perspective on heritage, resilience, and diaspora identity. Gothamist reported that the exhibition included approximately 15 works—paintings, sculpture, and drawings—and that Eugène incorporated materials sourced from nearby construction sites, connecting his process to the physical transformation of the neighborhood. In related coverage, Artsy noted that Eugène connected material choices in specific works to memories of Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, including streets filled with broken concrete.

Figurative work and Gallery 1957 (2020–2021) Eugène participated in the Legacy Brothers Lab residency in Chicago in 2020. Around this period he exhibited with Gallery 1957 in Accra, Ghana.

In 2021, Gallery 1957 presented Eugène’s solo exhibition Where Do We Go from Here? in Accra. Eugène noted that the exhibition title drew from the book Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? by Martin Luther King Jr. Gallery 1957 stated that the series transposed imagery drawn from vintage photography of Black artists into composite portraits and referenced the expressionism of West African masks, rendered in saturated color palettes associated with Haitian carnival.

Mariane Ibrahim Gallery (2022–present) In late 2022, Mariane Ibrahim presented Cinematic Expressions, a dual exhibition in Paris featuring new work by Eugène and Ziad Kaki. In 2023, the gallery announced global representation of Eugène.

From April to May 2023, Mariane Ibrahim presented Eugène’s solo exhibition 50 lbs. in Chicago. The exhibition title referred to common airline luggage weight limits and used that constraint as a framework to consider migration and the experience of carrying personal history across borders. Cultured described the series as exploring solitude across a spectrum from loneliness to self-awareness, with a palette moving from cyan to deep navy and a mix of gloss and matte finishes.

In February 2025, Mariane Ibrahim presented a solo booth of Eugène’s work at Frieze Los Angeles. Frieze highlighted themes in the artist’s recent work including migration, solitude, and family, and noted Eugène’s tendency to detach scenes from specific locations as a way to encourage viewer interpretation.

Dior Lady Art project (2025) In 2025, Eugène was selected as one of ten artists participating in Dior’s 10th-anniversary Dior Lady Art project, which invites contemporary artists to reinterpret the Lady Dior handbag design. His three handbags, titled The Pearl of the Antilles, referenced Haiti’s historical nickname “La Perle des Antilles” and incorporated materials such as raffia and a pearl charm to evoke Haitian craft traditions and the project’s theme. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Dior developed the bags from three conceptual sketches Eugène sent for the brand’s three handbag sizes, and that the pearl element was intended as a deliberate reference to the term’s colonial history.

Selected exhibitions

Solo exhibitions 2016: Deconstruction, BAF Gallery (Brooklyn Arts Fellowship), Brooklyn, New York 2025: Mariane Ibrahim at Frieze Los Angeles (solo presentation), Los Angeles, California

Collections and commissions According to a Mariane Ibrahim CV, Eugène’s work is held in the collections of the Mead Art Museum (Amherst College) and the Dean Collection (New York).