[9][10] Patterson received an MFA degree in 2006 in printmaking and drawing from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St.

[9] Patterson's early work often revolves around questions of identity and the body, and takes the form of mixed media paintings, drawings and collages, most of them on paper.

Subsequent works more provocatively focused on the vagina as an object and, by implication, examined the taboos that surround this body part and its functions within Jamaican culture.

This also led to 3-dimensional constructions made from intimate female articles such as sanitary napkins and tampons and more abstracted and surreal hybrid organic forms that appeared in her large paper collages of 2007.

[13] Her solo exhibition Ebony G. Patterson...while the dew is still on the roses...organized by and presented at the Pérez Art Museum Miami in 2018 gathered a number of artworks including drawings, tapestries, and sculptures that feature glitter, appliqués, pins, embellishments, fabric, tassels, brooches, pearls, and beads.

She ran a Kickstarter campaign to "reclaim and revitalize"[16] the site dedicated to Dr. Harry M. Gilkey, who used the pool in 1956 to teach hydrotherapy to youth with physical handicaps.

These are questions I want to pose not only for the exhibition but also for the community who once used it and will now use it again, and learn from what they have to say.Patterson further elaborated after the work was complete, noting, "I am very interested in how regular people claim space and that's what street side memorials do.

[22] Patterson's images imaginatively recreate portraits of young black males who bleach their skin, pluck their eyebrows and wear 'bling' jewelry to enhance their gangsta status.