There is an element of fantasy about Kochan's cityscapes that suggest another era, a suspended moment in time. Buildings are handled with flattened out washes of colors, as are the people who populate the streets, meandering through the composition as if in a dream world. Kochan's color is often strident, perhaps suggestive that she deals with the discordant and isolated feelings inherent in humanity through somewhat disharmonious color relationships. Diffuse color, lost and found edges, figures disappearing into light of shadow. Her somewhat theatrical approach to lighting casts an even more mysterious aspect. What is the time dimension depicted? Who are these people, and where are they going? What are they thinking? Because Kochan leaves some of these questions unanswered, the viewer is free to participate fully in the visual dialogue, viewing the past from the frozen surface of her painting, paintings that are subtle reminders of the evanescence of time and the ephemeral quality of all our lives.
An Excerpt from Betsy Stroud's Nostalgia, Art, and Social Consciousness: The Art of Pat Kochan (1992)
