Down By the River My Lungs And I by Pattie Lee Becker

Ramona's Bright Idea by Pattie Lee Becker

Happy Tuesday collectors! Jen will DEFINITELY be back in the newsletter-writing saddle tomorrow but for one more day it's Sara. Jen's just getting settled in, back in the office and the gallery, gearing up for the opening of the Hey, Hot Shot! 2009 First Edition Exhibition at the JB Gallery tomorrow night. There's a lot going on around here but they are all good things!

As is our usual Tuesday and Wednesday morning routine, Jen and I chatted about today's editions: Down By the River My Lungs and I and Ramona's Bright Idea by Pattie Lee Becker. We've all been drooling over the proofs for a couple months now. There's SO much rich detail in each image; it's easy to get lost in the work for awhile. Pattie Lee said it best in her statement:

Personal stories are transformed into imaginative invention. Color and pattern narrate; images conjure both the familiar and the fantastic.

As Jen noted this morning, Becker has an approach and aesthetic similar to that of a couple other 20x200 stars—Megan Whitmarsh and Ky Anderson—as well as art world canonical figures, Louise Bourgeois, Philip Guston and Edward Gorey. Like Bourgeois, Guston and Gorey, Becker spent several years creating in New York, making Brooklyn her home for ten years before relocating in the West. And, like Whitmarsh, her drawing practice is accompanied by some serious sewing skills. The fantastical creatures and organic details in her two-dimensional works are often echoed in three-dimensional stuffed sculptures of both small and larger-than-life scale. Youngna, who almost moved into Becker's Brooklyn apartment—for some reason, 20x200-land is a very small world!—described the home as a "magical forest house." You can see by the sheer amount of work on Pattie Lee's website, she's an artist who is always working; and there is little separation between work and life.

I think this is why the narratives evoked by her work effortlessly seem personal but accessible, with room for everyone to write their own. In Down By the River My Lungs and I, I am instantly transported to a seat on a river bank, eroded so that the roots of ancient trees are visible and the air is heavy with water splashing and mixing with decomposing vegetation. In Ramona's Bright Idea, I am reminded of childhood pranks and adventures gone awry. These are drawings that you can long spend looking at and re-creating the stories that exist within them.

If you have the chance, Becker's original works are on view in Brooklyn, beautifully framed and hung at Bird in Williamsburg through the end of the day and maybe a little bit longer. One other show that will be short but sweet—the aforementioned and upcoming Hey, Hot Shot! 2009 First Edition Exhibition opens tomorrow night from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. at Jen Bekman Gallery, 6 Spring Street (between Elizabeth and the Bowery). Before then, Jen will be back with brand-new editions from one of the latest Hot Shots!