PATRON is proud to announce our third exhibition with Los Angeles-based artist Greg Breda. Where I am found premieres five paintings on synthetic silk, material on which Breda initially began working in early 2023. The first focused presentation of his work in this media, Where I am found expands on Breda’s “Hei,” (ה) series (2018-present), which references the fifth letter in the Hebrew alphabet. “Hei” has historically been interpreted in various ways, from referencing an “opening” or a “window”, to its common attribution towards signaling clarity, or a spiritual presence. Best known for contemplative paintings of solitary figures caught in moments of self-reflection, Breda’s “Hei” series function as visual metaphors for the expansive potential of the human spirit.  





Each painting positions a solitary figure within an intimate setting garden-scape, or in proximity to the natural world. Fluent in symbolism, Breda’s plants and flowers provide clues towards his timeless figures’ interior state. The bright explosions of Allium flowers, which populate front lawns and civic parks in Southern California are, for Breda, nature’s “Flower of Life,” representing the interconnectedness of all things. Where Breda has previously drawn on scenes from historical cinema, and visual culture within his work, in Where I am found, he more directly references art history– the muted horizontal colors of the figure’s blouse in As it is (2024), reference the hazy minimal horizon-scapes of post-war abstractionist Ed Clark, the clothing depicting in Finding focus (2024) alludes to the broken flower pattern found in Alma Thomas’s paintings of the 1970s. Grounding themselves in communion with the natural world, Breda’s figures command a palpable pause–rendered within suspended moments of expressive quiet. Captured in deep contemplation, or the experience of internal enlightenment, the individuals hold space for personal revolution and expansion. Not representative of particular individuals, but rather conjured from the artist’s imagination, memory, cinema and media, Breda’s figures embody Kevin Quashie’s “quiet has a habit of being,” confronting “ the reservoir of our fears, hungers, ambitions, desires, and vulnerabilities … the things that make us human.” 





For Breda, personal and social growth occurs within the quiet spaces. By giving weight to times of introspection, Breda’s paintings open up windows to the illumination and peace possible by practicing quiet as a state of being. The works in the exhibition hold and acknowledge the artist’s reminder that “we are all one breath” and that through but attuning ourselves, we can transform the world.