Patricia Maloney creates vivid sculptures engaging themes of loss, abandonment, and interrupted youth. Inspired by the children, women potters, and her students in Ghana, the daily struggles of Haitians, and heartbreak of the slums of India, her work reflects on the terrible collision of innocence and suffering.
Maloney’s clay confronts the horrific abduction of Nigerian schoolgirls by Boko Haram. Her Bring Back Our Girls paper-thin porcelain suggests the fragility of children. The sienna-toned decals of the girls’ outstretched hands evoke hope transcending present suffering. Her empathy is felt in the folds of the children’s clothing she twists, tears, and rips until the clay testifies for the world’s forgotten children.
Patricia Maloney received her MFA from Oklahoma University and MA from Murray State University. Her various exhibitions include A Child’s Story at Olin Art Gallery in Washington, PA in 2015. Maloney received two Fulbrights to Ghana in 1993-94 and 1994-95.