The second Friday of every month in Berlin is always exciting for us at the Globe. We see a lot of new faces in town, we participate in the always lovely 2nd Friday Art Stroll, and we get brand new artwork for a whole month! This past Friday we welcomed back Patti Backer, one of our delightful local artists, with her show Lighter Than Air.
Patti's work is always a big hit. She has described her style as "lowbrow and folk, cute and sinister," and it's a perfect tagline. Her paintings tend to include creatures who have turned one disarmingly sentient yet benign eye towards you as they carry on with however they seem to be entertaining themselves. Titled as simply as "Slowpokes" or as elaborately as "The Octopus and Albino Blackbird Made For An Unlikely Pair," her work is inviting and colorful, in both senses of the word.
I won a few moments of her time just before the opening of Lighter Than Air in the Art Gallery and asked her about a few paintings in particular. In "Anteater Loves a Thunderstorm," an anteater wearing a jaunty little hat has lassoed an ant with his tongue, and I thought at first glance that he was blissfully unaware of the ongoing storm just behind him. I asked, concerned, and Patti said, "He'll be fine. He knows what's going on. They all kinda know what's going on, I think." And she's right. This anteater is having a ball. I inquired how the turtle in "Slowpokes" felt about the snail and bird sitting on his back and she replied, "I think they adore each other. There's some love between everybody [in the paintings]. I have a lot of fun playing with human emotions on animal faces."
An avid gardener, Patti shared that she draws inspiration from watching the birds interact outside her home in Berlin. "I just watch the birds, sometimes for hours. My neighbors probably think I'm a weirdo." Neighbors aside, the world Patti's captured with her paintings is a magical one, and if I can find a classy enough hat I might just sit outside in the next thunderstorm. No ants though, thank you.
Pictured from top to bottom: "The Beautiful Flounder," "Anteater Loves a Thunderstorm," and "Slowpokes," all by Patti Backer
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