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Plateau’s Artful Icon
Written By: Donna Rhodes | Issue: 2020/09 – September
Patty Calderone is synonymous with Fine Art in Highlands. She knows her way around a canvas, around the region’s consortium of artists, around the complex business of art, and lately around the art of France.
She’s a talented artlaw (art outlaw), upending traditions and rules in surprising, inventive ways. She began as a watercolorist. Over the years, Patty broke through purist boundaries, layering acrylic over pastel over watercolor with fixatives preserving each layer. And if the depth weren’t rich enough, more layers were brushed, drawn, scratched, and daubed until the background reeled and the foreground rocked in a harmonious dance of color, texture, and rhythm.
In 2017 Patty made a life-changing trip to France.
She says, “French work held me spellbound. I was mesmerized by the architecture, decorative work, daily life, fashion, and the style variety, ancient to contemporary. Taking inspiration from the French aesthetic made me want to stretch. I was drawn to the revered museum, Musee d’Orsay. I fell in love with Francoise de Felice, a figurative artist whose work I found in Galerie Calderone (no relation). My French experience had a profound influence on my process.”
Many of those influences related to the way figures were perceived and adorned. Instead of one dominant figure, several images interacted. Some figures were juxtaposed, others distanced to create intriguing negative space. Imaginative costuming, transparent washes and colors, introduction of animals, and textural surfaces like canvas grain peeking through all contributed to a more complex way of approaching a composition. Patty can’t wait to incorporate these practices into her own work.
Like many artists, Patty has adapted to the pandemic. She’s grabbing the opportunity to build a studio at home and take time to produce a body of work in a space that is more accommodating and serene. She says, “It’s time for a change. I just want to paint … three paintings at once … and have the luxury of leaving my messes!”
A majority of those paintings will be figurative work, of human or animal persuasion. Faces, furry or fair, will tell dramatic tales. So if you have a special someone, two legs or four, or a photo of a favorite setting, mountain or shore, commission Patty to immortalize your love(s). Contact her at (828) 371-0376, at [email protected], visit her website, calderonegallery.com, or Instagram, or look for her ads in the Laurel.
