Oct 24, 2003  |  By: YUSEF NAJAFI  | COMMENTS     

PATSY FLEMING LEFT the world of art to work for the federal government for more than two decades. Now, the former AIDS czar for the Clinton administration is back doing what she really loves: drawing and painting.

Fleming, who was director of National AIDS Policy for the Clinton administration from 1993 to 1997, prefers creating abstracts and figurative works of people. But most of the time, she leaves race, gender and sexual orientation out of her pictures.

“My ideas include a desire to tell the observer something about the figure — but not specifically,” she says.

Fleming’s work is currently on display at her first solo exhibit, which is at the Foundry Gallery, in northwest Washington. In addition to Washington, her paintings also have been displayed and are in private collections in New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Scotland and Russia.

BORN IN PHILADELPHIA, Fleming, who has a gay son, has been exhibiting her artwork since 1959. She currently has a studio in Bethesda, Md.

A graduate of Vassar College, Fleming honed her skills at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and New York University.

For the past three years, she also has displayed her work in an annual exhibit titled “Common Bond,” which showcases the work of African American artists at the Strathmore Hall Arts Center in Bethesda.

“Patsy’s work is very much her,” says Millie Shott, the visual arts director for “Common Bond.” “She has a very outgoing personality, and you can see that in her artwork.”

Shott says she was particularly impressed by Fleming’s use of vibrant colors, and her ability to present work free of political expression.

“I find her work has a great amount of appeal to a lot of different people,” she says, “When people walk in the gallery and see her work, they are searching for a hidden message. And that’s what art should be.”

FLEMING DISCOVERED HER interest in politics as a result of an assignment on Capitol Hill through a fellowship with the Washington Education Fellowship Program. Her job was to handle legislation on issues related to education, civil rights, welfare matters, health care and more.

She then worked for the late U.S. Rep. Ted Weiss, a Democrat from New York who served in Congress from 1977 to 1992. She investigated the Reagan and Bush administrations’ response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Before landing a job as the director of National AIDS Policy under the Clinton administration, Fleming worked for the U.S. Department of Human Health and Services, as assistant to Secretary Donna Shalala. Her work there involved addressing HIV/AIDS and gay and lesbian issues.

But for all her accomplishments in politics, Fleming is having an influence on the world in a radically new way today.

“I believe that art helps us to ask questions about who we are and what we live for,” she says.