Pattie Lee Becker
Artist Statement
The free-flowing narratives of Pattie Lee Becker’s artwork reside within the imaginative process and vibrant color palette of her fine-line drawings and curious sculptures. Her pattern-rich and highly detailed works showcase the results of her playful “dream improvisations” – her process for channeling the subconscious to discover the themes of her work. Becker’s compositions are spontaneous explorations of subject and mood that reveal distinctive networks of forms and situations as they are created, allowing the works to build and reveal their own stories.
POWERS OF TEN
Inspired by the Charles and Ray Eames film “Powers of Ten“, all of the images in this series, which I consider to be one artwork, are each a distinct view within one shared world. Each drawing can be described as a still frame of an animated journey through 10 primary floating layers, with two subsequent background layers visible in each frame. As each framing represents a point of perspective along a line traveled, the compositions transform through consistent scaling and linear motion along the axis of the viewer’s gaze.
This process is an experiment in layering which defies classical ideas of perspective and depth even while portraying patently flat surfaces. A disorienting inversion of nearness and distance have the confounding result of allowing background objects to grow proportionally with their distance, much like the disorienting experience of looking through a magnifying glass while moving it away from an object. This series is a personal response to the eponymous Charles and Ray Eames film, which portrays an inspiring but much more scientific exploration of the effects of distance and scale on our visual environment.
Artist Bio
Born Jackson MI, 1975
Lives and works in Denver CO
Education
BFA, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence RI, 1997
MFA, Columbia University School of the Arts, New York NY, 2001
Selected Exhibitions
Solo Exhibitions
2017
Denver Botanic Gardens, ‘Play’, Denver CO
2013
Firehouse Art Center, ‘Objects in Place’, Longmont CO
2012
Gildar Gallery, ‘Powers of Ten’, Denver CO
2011
Lincoln Gallery of Naropa University, ‘Recent Works on Paper’, Boulder CO
Rude Gallery of RMCAD, ‘What I Once Thought Was Mine is Now Ours’, Denver CO
Illiterate Gallery, ‘Psychescapes’, Denver CO
2010
Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, ‘Ropes’, Boulder CO
2009
Bird, ‘Out of My Head’, New York NY
2005
A.I.R. Gallery, ‘The Harbingers’, Brooklyn NY
Wave Hill, ‘Love First, Live Incidentally or How Humans Grew into Nature’, Bronx NY
Group Exhibitions
2018
Space Gallery, ‘Informed – Print as an Influence’, Denver CO
2015
Denver Art Museum’s Design After Dark, ‘Amass’, Denver CO
2014
Denver Art Museum’s Design After Dark, ‘Cast’, Denver CO
2013
UCCS GoCA, ‘Visual Environments: Pattie Lee Becker and Suchitra Mattai’, Colorado Springs CO
Gildar Gallery, ‘Group Show Vol. 3’, Denver CO
2012
Icecube Gallery, ‘Icebreaker 3’, Denver CO
Gildar Gallery, ‘Inaugural Exhibition Vol. 2’, Denver CO
2011
Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art and DWR, ‘White Space 2011’, Boulder CO
Denver Theater District (DTD), ‘2011’, Denver CO
2010
Michael Rosenthal Gallery, ‘Beyond Arcadia (A Poem for New Jersey)’, San Francisco CA
Anderson Ranch Patton-Malott Gallery, ‘Made: Artist Projects at Anderson Ranch’, Snowmass Village CO
Slideluck Potshow, ‘Exploration’, Boulder CO
Endden Bellegrade, ‘Blackbox Theater as Abandoned Zoo’, Boulder CO
2007
Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art and DWR, ‘White Space 2’, Boulder CO
2005
The Horticultural Society of New York, ‘Breaking Ground’, New York NY
PS1 Greater New York 2005: Performance Series, ‘Can’t Find the Bottom’, LIC NY
Parker’s Box, ‘I AM 5 Art Fair’, Representing Klaus Von Kichtssagend, Brooklyn NY
Black and White Gallery, ‘Buy it Now’, Brooklyn NY
2004
The Leroy Neiman Gallery, Columbia University, ‘After Goya’, New York NY
2003
HERE art, ‘Mysterious Journey’, New York NY
1999
PS 122 Gallery, ‘Pattie Lee Becker and Francesco Simeti’, New York NY
Awards
Grants and Awards
2014
Denver Art Museum’s Design After Dark, ‘Cast’, Denver CO – Award
2010
Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, CA – Visiting Artist
Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Snowmass Village CO – Visiting Artist
2009
20 x 200: A Jen Bekman Project, New York NY – Edition Recipient
2005
A.I.R. Gallery, Brooklyn NY – Fellowship Recipient
2001
Ucross Foundation, Sheridan WY – Spring Resident
2000
Lower East Side Printshop, New York NY – Special Editions Fellow
LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies, New York, NY – Neiman Fellow
1999
The Millay Colony for the Arts, Austerlitz NY – Winter Resident
