This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Dec. 10, 2012 - The Good Citizen Gallery is a modest art venue that is worth finding. It is just east of Jefferson on Gravios, close enough to the South Grand, Lafayette Square, Benton Park, Soulard and Cherokee neighborhoods to be a good follow-up destination after a dinner out or pre-event before drink and dance.
Heather Patterson’s current exhibit, Deconstruct, is less modest and makes the storefront gallery even more worth finding. Of course the billboard above the gallery adorned with a huge print of Patterson’s Through should make it easier to find.
Nothing is overtly representational in Patterson’s work unless you count the flora that finds its way onto some of her mixed media panels. I find geometry, biology and physics in her work. And titles such as Pixel, Bio, Flo and Angle Graph suggest I’m not too far off in my appreciation from the artist’s intention.
Earthy masses, clouds and mist connote landscape but dissolve into fields of floral pattern or waves of single cell organisms with traffic lines crossing over it all, drawing the viewer into a vortex. Patterson’s cosmologies occur in a universe in which the life is not pulled toward any planet by gravity. If Patterson’s art works were Star Trek special effects, you’d be entering a wormhole-like structure in which a species much more complex than ours dwells, using senses our bodies don’t hold.
Patterson gives into beauty completely. The contrasts within her work are delightful: line against curve; sloppy, shiny, luscious sculpted lumps of paint on matte geometric shapes. These contrasts and the use of interrupted patterns keep the viewer guessing. Images come in complex configurations of colors you never thought could create such peaceful cohesion. The compositions work much like a musical number that switches chords and stays away from hooks. Your mind cannot create a whole from the pieces, leaving room for the viewer to sit with the work.
Sarah Hermes Griesbach is a freelance writer.