Artist Spotlight - "The Art of Tolerance"
- CARAVAN Arts
- Sep 27
- 12 min read
An Interview with noted North African born artist Patrick Altes:
CARAVAN's president, Paul G. Chandler, had the privilege of interviewing the remarkable North African born Franco-Spanish artist Patrick Altes, who has participated in CARAVAN exhibitions and whose work and life inspirationally represent the mission of CARAVAN.
“I’m interested in the role of the artist in playing a small part in making a ‘better world’"
Patrick Altes, artist
Patrick Altes was born in Algeria, North Africa into a Franco-Spanish family. He lived for extensive periods in South Africa, South America and is now based in the UK. He received an MA in Fine Art from Brighton University in 2008. Being born in a very traditional working-class family, he wasn’t destined to be an artist and his path to becoming one has been far from straightforward. As a result, his practice has been deeply informed by his personal history. His work is concerned with diaspora, identity, post-colonialism and the existential crisis that humanity faces, and the paradigm shift required of us to combat climate change. His practice, through digital art, painting and installation is concerned with the interfaces between geopolitical and environmental challenges. His work develops his artistic philosophy and concerns with humanity, as well as explores our relationship with the environment. Patrick creates ambiguous works, which have a strong connection to the natural world and its biological, organic and spiritual components. His source of inspiration is the relationship/interconnectedness, or lack thereof, between people and the world we inhabit. He is represented by Janet Rady Fine Art.
For more information:
-Visit: patrickaltes.com
-Subscribe to Patrick Altes’ list and receive his “Tolerance” E-catalogue
-Listen to an Podcast interview with Patrick Altes on Considering Art
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“The artist is seeking a connection to the unknown by accessing the unconscious. . . . art is something I need, to make sense of myself, my surroundings and the world we live in.”
Patrick Altes
I would love to hear how you became an artist. Can you share how that came about, and who or what most influenced you in your artistic journey?
Patrick: I was born in a very working-class French family with traditional values in terms of work and life… get a stable job, keep it and keep going until retirement. I was a quiet child and loved to draw. Yet, the road was clear and straightforward and when I became a primary school teacher, I delivered on my family’s expectations. Then fate began to add twists and turns to what looked like a very straight path. Rather than undertake the then French compulsory military service, I was offered the chance to teaching at the University of Fort Hare in South Africa, at the height of the Apartheid regime. At the time, I had never left France and didn’t speak English, although I pretended I did. The two years I spent in South Africa were an incredible eye opener on so many levels and I realized that maybe I wasn’t meant for the humdrum life, that I was able to adapt and learn and that could define my life the way I wanted to. I also realized that I loved being around artists. I’d say that it was the destruction of the parental model that allowed me to become an artist. After South Africa, I spent six years in Ecuador and have now have been living in the UK for almost 20 years.
In a nutshell, a series of events and meetings made me an artist: being born in Algeria and never feeling completely at ease in France, living in South Africa, Ecuador and the UK, meeting artists who comforted me in the wisdom of the mad choice I was making and Helen, my wife who believed and still believes in me.
Your art reflects a creative blending of unique styles and diverse cultural influences. Can you tell us about your upbringing and how that has influenced your work as an artist?
Patrick: I was born in North Africa and moved to France as a kid, but the umbilical cord that links me to my continent of my birth was never severed. As such and somewhat paradoxically, I feel I am part of an African diaspora that struggles to finds its place in Europe. To me, the Mediterranean shores are a nexus of civilizations that have traditionally cross-fertilized and influenced each other and in a way redefined the traditional notion of nationalism and belonging.
I was technically – albeit four years old - part of the colonial oppressors of Algeria under French rule. I experienced racism and rejection while growing up – for being "pied-noir" [French people born in Algeria] which was an objectionable class to some members of French society, but also for being browner skinned than many white French. This made my two years in South Africa under the Apartheid, teaching black students, a such a powerful experience. Later, the six years I spent in South America, were influential as I connected there with the spiritual power of Nature and the need to live in harmony, as well as the essence of “magical realism” which imbues the continent.
All these experiences are part of who I am and essential components of my art, which is deeply influenced by my personal history.
Growing up bridging multiple cultures has given you a life of many enriching layers. Can you explain your use of layering in creating a work of art?
Patrick: Throughout history and for thousands of years, from nomadic deserts to modern cities, people have migrated from place to place looking to improve their lives for the better. Whether we live in Europe, America, Asia or Africa, we are all descendants of immigrants in one way or another. The layering in my work, which I technically use as an alternative to perspective, is a way of creating an “archeology” of the painting within itself, symbolically referring to our richly patterned history as a species as well as expanding our understanding of the world we live in. I use multiple processes and materials to achieve this layering, so many of my works have a complex texture. I am trying to allow the painting to be ‘embodied’ as part and beyond the image making.
Many of your art themes address negative cultural stereotyping, in which you encourage an awakening to the reality of past wrongs, yet advocate for tolerance, respect and living in harmony. Can you tell me about your personal interest in the evolving relationship between the contemporary world and our deeper humanity?
Patrick: In my two years in South Africa as a twenty-something, I was living in a town called Alice in the Karoo. Officially under the rule of the Apartheid, I had first-hand experience of a society based on discrimination, repression and deprivation of civil and political rights for the majority of the population. This experience fueled in me a strong and lasting notion of the politically, socially ethically and humanly acceptable. Later, I realized how this formative experience made me think of my personal history (or rather that of my parents as I was a small child at the time) in Algeria and how colonization and oppression can shape countries as well as have lasting influence in both our contemporary societies and our personal identities. The challenge facing us all – beyond the existential crises we are facing – is how we each can shape the world, our own worlds, so they bring us contentment.
For me, the ability to discuss and listen, to be tolerant, to accept most people want the same thing – to thrive, to prosper, to have an education, to be part of a community and to have the right and freedom to choose their representatives - all important to a healthy democracy. Obviously, there are a lot of threats, most of which humanity has created. I’m interested in the role of the artist in playing a small part in making a ‘better world’ whether it is through work that increases awareness, or helping others access creativity to make sense of their lives and identities.
Your art series “Arcadia,” part of what was exhibited in Oran, Algeria in 2024, speaks to a vision of an idyllic place. Can you explain what sparked this idea in you?
Patrick: In terms of technique, ‘Arcadia’ marks a new development in the juxtaposition of drawing, collage and painting. In terms of meaning, it expands on the allegory of our psyche and the divide between our unconscious and conscious self.
As we strive to emerge, battling the conflicting pulls of our own dangerous hidden depths and the demands of ego and society, Arcadia refers to a place of rustic innocence and simple, quiet pleasures. A place of safety. This series of paintings evokes the false premise of an idyllic pastoral dream, a paradise, where life is happy, wholesome and bucolic. They signify at first glance that the past, another past, is a better alternative to the present.
Yet, it also suggests these yearnings can only be fleeting and herald the need for a new awareness that we ultimately shape our destinies. They suggest that the state of the world today and our environmental fears and concerns, may one day be viewed as a ‘last chance’ paradise.
In that respect, Arcadia is intrinsically linked to our colonial past and our ongoing refusal to see its consequences lingering in our contemporary societies but, maybe paradoxically, it also celebrates the new awakening of awareness, albeit fragile, in our contemporary societies. Humanity exists in a continuum, needing history to make sense of the times we are living, yet is obsessed by myths where the spiritual and the material create a new legacy expanding our horizons and our minds.
Can you describe the imagery behind your recurring use of a “hopscotch” in your artwork?
Patrick: Hopscotch was a popular game in the school I was going to as a young child. Hastily drawn on the ground with chalk, it opened all sorts of magical realms and fantasy universes ruled by the unconscious. To me as an artist, the game came to represent the unhindered ability we have to dream and how our dreams are part of who we become and how we evolve. In that respect, the hopscotch is a metaphorical yardstick of our ever-changing identity. It is also a metaphor exploring the irony behind the belief that we consciously lead our lives and are in control of our destinies, when we are being led by our unconscious drives and urges.
" We have now reached a point in our evolution when we need to reconnect with the environment, in a primal way, which is something we owe to our inner-selves.”
A previous exhibition of yours was called “The 21st century will be spiritual.” Why do you think this will be so? And can you share with us a little about how your own spiritual journey is reflected in your art?
Patrick: “The 21st century will be spiritual or it won’t be” is a quote from André Malraux, the French writer, who predicted in the last century, in a prescient way, that the estrangement of humanity from its roots would necessitate a spiritual awakening to provide meaning and a connection to something beyond the material world.
We no longer inhabit a world offering the promise of an ever better future due to profligacy and over-consumption. The space and time in which we live is beset by the threat of pollution, over-population, war, displacement, unrest and destruction. The world has become polarized and antagonistic, pitting cultures, religions, political systems and people against each other to the detriment of a global agreement respecting the different spaces we are busy destroying. We have now reached a point in our evolution when we need to reconnect with the environment, in a primal way, which is something we owe to our inner-selves.
The artworks of this series ask us to think and live in the world differently. We have within ourselves the antidote to the material evil we have created or accepted. We must first put aside our differences and think globally to be able to tackle the ultimate challenge of climate change and environmental destruction we have initiated.
Optimistically, we should be on the brink of a collective epiphany that will change our consciousness in a drastic and permanent way. We need to evolve spiritually and embrace our environment again or face destruction.
Your work is infused by a variety of Western and Eastern influences which encourage viewers to reflect on our own values and ideas. What aspects of your own identity and worldview especially drive you?
Patrick: I am interested in anthropology and how people perceive the world. I see myself as an inbetweener. Born in Africa but French with very strong Andalusian ascendency, and having lived more than half my life outside France, I feel I am at the intersection of cultures and civilizations, which allows me to draw from many different sources, Western and Eastern, to find my own truth.
The French poet Charles Baudelaire expressed this in a powerful way:
Nature is a temple in which living pillars
Sometimes give voice to confused words;
Man passes there through forests of symbols
Which look at him with understanding eyes. (Correspondances)
To me, this is a powerful way to express how the artist is seeking a connection to the unknown by accessing the unconscious.
I have also always been interested in religions and how they shape people’s understanding of and relationship with the world. My work with CARAVAN was in that respect really amazing and I loved this idea of the three main monotheist faiths working together in order to manifest that spirituality is an essential component of who we are and how similar we are in our need to understand the world beyond what our eyes can see.
Left: Patrick Altes, Exodust, Mixed media and collage on canvas, 120 x 80 cm
Right: Patrick Altes, Death Transformation Rebirth, Mixed media and collage on canvas, 120 x 80 cm
Your art has a sense of freedom and integration that is unique to you as an artist. Is there an artistic medium you enjoy exploring more than another?
Patrick: I like the parallel between life and art. I’ve always enjoyed a degree of experimentation with materials and I really like working with colors. I would say that I am first and foremost a painter but I also really enjoy using drawings and photographs to create digital prints. This said, I find installations a really powerful means of expression and I love the idea of using different media at the same time in an exhibition.
I have to ask you about one of my favorite works of yours! It is titled “El Ultimo Suspiro Del Moro,” or in English, “The Moor’s Last Sigh.” Please tell us more about this work and its context.
Patrick: El Ultimo Suspiro del Moro, the last sigh of the Moor, refers to the story of the last Arab king of Andalusia, in Spain, who when forced to flee from the advancing armies of the queen and king of Spain. He looked at the city of Grenada from a nearby hill, mourned his loss, and continued his journey to exile accompanied by his mother - who is supposed to have snapped, "Weep, weep like a woman, over what you couldn't defend like a man." To me this story is emblematic of the intertwined relationship between the West and the East as well as the undeniable, if underrated contributions of the East to what we call “civilization.”
Can you share with us what you are working on artistically at this time and what you have coming up?
Patrick: I am still developing my latest series Arcadia as it is helping me develop a “language” of signs and symbols as a means to access archetypes and bridge the gap between visual art and literature in order to create art inspired by Jungian theories. I have always admired artists like Miró, who developed a language of signs that he would use in a recurrent way in his paintings. Incidentally, I probably fell in love with art when I first saw “Bleu 2”by Miró at the Centre Pompidou, one of the main museums of contemporary art in Paris.
This series, which keeps on expanding is opening up new alleys of creativity and is really firing me up. I am planning an exhibition of ‘Arcadia’ in 2026. It also ties in nicely with my current reading about existentialism and is helping me navigate the troubled times we are living in. In that respect, art is something I need, to make sense of myself, my surroundings and the world we live in; the pleasure I get in making it and exhibiting it is an added bonus. I’m also exploring a visual form of memoir, which is in its early stages. In the meantime, some of my work will be exhibited at the International Contemporary Art Fair in Algiers in November 2025.
*Photo credit: Patrick Altes in his studio - ©Janet Rady Fine Art
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