Artist Blog: Pat Rocha

Pat Rocha is an artist I have recently discovered, who was born in Topeka, Texas in 1959, and considers himself as a graphic artist. He has worked for both NBC and Fox as a courtroom artist, but now, mainly focuses on creating his own artwork, as well as teaching private painting lessons. His work caught my eye because of his titles and how they work with the artwork shown. I feel that in my own pieces need an overall title that speaks very strongly with the work, without getting cliché or just downright boring. I think that titles are a crucial part of a piece and unless the title is a good compliment, all other titles will just bring down the work. Here is a piece below, which works really well with the imagery. The piece is titled “The Burden of Memory” created in 2008, and it is helping me consider my own usage of a title, and some possible key words that I could use in that title, being that the subject matter is on a similar wavelength as my own.

Titles need to be properly used so that they are broad enough not to spell out the details of the image, but not too broad so that it does not flow between the pieces. The following picture below is titled “Presence Crossing”, which, to me, it complements the photograph, and tells a separation between what looks like a mother figure on the right, losing a child to the world outside. It hints at, with the usage of the title, a passage of time, like a crossing between the days of old, both in youth, and of society’s switch into a more technological and advanced life. This picture is supposed to capture the moment of the switch, as if it was a ‘jump’ from one, clearly defined, line or box, into the outside new life.





The title will be a huge part of my piece, and I am still working on key words that I should focus on in my own title.

http://www.artnet.com/artwork/425915834/425570766/pat-rocha-the-burden-of-memory.html

http://www.artnet.com/artwork/425613646/425570766/pat-rocha-presence-crossing.html

http://www.artnet.com/artist/425571519/pat-rocha.html