In the late seventies Patricia Hiele studied Monumental Expression at the Westhoek Academy in Koksijde (B).
She also studies chemistry then, making it her profession at the research centre of AGFA-Gevaert. But the encounter with several art forms kept lingering for many years.
Early nineties she took a fresh start with Sculpture studies at the Academy of Mortsel (B), and since then art has taken a permanent place in her life again.

 In her sculpture work she confronts herself with the stone in an attempt to bring it to life; the raw stone reveals its polished “inner”side, but even in the smoothly polished sculpture there is often a fracture surface left that refers to its origin as a stone.

The composition of her work is very strict, nearly mathematically correct, using geometrical forms, seeking the right balance.
The combination of materials, blue-stone vs marble, hard vs soft; the effect of the element fire on metal, giving it an extra dimension followed by the symbiosis with the stone; this all is initiated by a search for harmony and tension.
Metal, bended like a bow, uses this tension as a source of potential energy.
That’s why a lot of her recent work consists of a combination of metal and stone.

The use of the element water also takes an important place in her work. She uses water to bring the stone to life, in a constant interaction with weather and wind.
The water sculptures are like sources, where the water seeks its way down, over and over again, in an eternal cycle.

Taking all of this into account, the creation process can be seen as a synthesis of the whole of our environment and its basic nature elements.
 

In her photography Patricia focuses, by means of MACRO-shots, on the universality of forms and structures, which goes from the atomic up to the universal level.
Details of colours, forms, structures, textures are frozen, digitally handled, are combined into compositions, with he same care as she builds up her sculptures.
She prefers this work to be called Fragments rather than Photographs. As they are detached from their context, they live a life of their own, away from the reality of a photograph.