In ‘Especially Terrific,’ Pat Perry Conjures the Exceptional Memories of Middle America

two white women, one younger and one older, sit on a small bleacher outdoors with pies and cakes surrounding them. the older woman appears to glow from behind

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Art

#murals
#painting
#Pat Perry
#public art
#street art

August 13, 2024

Grace Ebert

“Call on Me” (2024), acrylic on canvas, 66 x 78 inches. All images © Pat Perry, shared with permission

Especially Terrific, the title of Pat Perry’s most recent body of work, is multivalent. The phrase invokes both the exceptional and also the grim, which the Detroit-based artist conjures as he captures singular moments on canvas.

On view through October 13 at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Especially Terrific zeroes in on “America from backstage,” glimpsing small-town life and family gatherings. Two women pose on wooden bleachers with an array of cakes and pies in “Call on Me,” while “Memorial Van” displays four photos on the dashboard of a weathered vehicle. Baked with nostalgia, the paintings evoke candid photos and capture a moment in time, one that has inevitably passed.

Perry settled on the idea for the series while reading an architecture book that described the calming, pleasant human reaction to perfect, harmonious design as a response to encountering order amid a chaotic world. “Paintings can function similarly,” he noted, “somehow tempering the parts of experience that are especially terrifying to confront.” He came upon the passage around the same time that a childhood friend’s mom died, a period of grief that reminded him of the hopeful potential of making art. He added:

As paintings, those terrifying parts are quieted down. Somehow they are transformed into something oddly serene. Painting is an act of venturing into your own mental wilderness, facing a monster that you know will devour you, and even though you can’t defeat it, reckoning with it by doing something productive and creative.

In addition to the smaller works on canvas, Perry recently completed a pair of murals in Buffalo and Knoxville. Evoking expansive collages of photos, drawings, and paintings, both reference how memories can be gathered, grouped, and organized. Find more of the artist’s work on his website and Instagram.

a mural that appears like a collage with three family photos, and small drawings and paintings

“Erie County Witness Tree Map,” commissioned by Buffalo AKG Museum

pies and cakes rest on outdoor bleachers with grass and sand in the background

Detail of “Call on Me” (2024), acrylic on canvas, 66 x 78 inches

a mural created like a collage with a painting of a burning building and the top of a head of a white man among trees below

Detail of “Erie County Witness Tree Map”

people gather around a baseball field. some are on horseback while yellow, blue, and pink smoke emerges at the edge of the field

“Visitors” (2024), acrylic on canvas, 42 x 55 inches

a collage-like mural with four crocheted quilt squares, three photos of older women, and smaller drawings

Mural commissioned by Dogwood Arts in Knoxville, Tennessee

an old blue fan parked in a gravel driveway with green vines crawling up the front wheel. four small photos are in the front window

“Memorial Van” (2024), acrylic on canvas, 62 x 78 inches

a detail image of two small family photos in the front window of a blue van

Detail of “Memorial Van” (2024), acrylic on canvas, 62 x 78 inches

a glowing 7 Eleven at dusk, with cars parked out front in a barren parking lot

“Together Garden” (2023), acrylic on panel, 33 x 49 inches

#murals
#painting
#Pat Perry
#public art
#street art

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