Patricia K. Hecht
Artist Bio:
Patricia K. Hecht uses a geometric visual language to create intricate aerial compositions that examine the repetition and routine found within urban built environments. Often based on altered reality, her works meditate on the psychologies of physical and conceptual design, deeply considering the roles that architecture and urban planning play in shaping societal hierarchies and individual identities.
Hecht grew up in Vermont and has lived in Savannah, Georgia intermittently since 2003. She holds a B.F.A. in art history 07’ and a MFA in painting 19’ from Savannah College of Art and Design
Artist Interview:
Nikki Zuaro: Can you start off by introducing yourself and give a brief background? Where did you grow up?
Patricia Hecht: I’m a painter and fine artist from Southern Vermont and have been living in Savannah on and off since 2004. While I grew up in rural town in Vermont my family is from New York City and surrounding areas, so I got the best of the rural life with a healthy dose of urban culture.
NZ: Your work delves into complex themes such as memory, reality, and altered reality. Can you talk about what initially drew you to explore these concepts?
PH: Memory, reality and altered reality all circle the same concept for me, they are how we navigate life. Formed from moments we repeat in our minds, directions, song lyrics, or interactions with the world. One of the more commonly known phenomenon’s is the Mandela Effect, named after a collective widespread memory of Nelson Mandela dying in prison in the 1980s (he did not) this effect can be felt in film, literature, painting, really anything. It’s that collective memory, be it true or false that peaks my interest. How one person’s memory of a place can translate to generations of stories, altered slightly each time, yet remaining truthful to the teller.
NZ: Your work references cartographic imagery and floor plans. How do these elements relate to the themes of memory and altered reality in your work?
PH: When I first started working with floor plans, they were of specific buildings, mental institutions. Those buildings were designed with the direct intent of making the patients’ lives better. Over the years not only did that intent falter, but the buildings were reallocated as apartments, offices, schools, etc. I don’t know that the physical building has a memory, but the people that were in them do. The roads that were formed around the buildings tell the stories of how each worker got there. Comparing maps that are decades apart shows the growth and changes of the human element, their patterns, and routines. In my own life I can see the roads I took from Vermont to NYC. I have clear memories of the corner that you turn left on with the pirate ship swing set. That swing set hasn’t been there for 15 years, but it is still very much there in my memory. In that case, my memory isn’t wrong, but its current reality doesn’t match. So, when I’m working with something like a film set there is an extra layer of knowing what I’m seeing was never real, but also is potentially more tangible than some of my own memories.
NZ: A lot of what you create is very structured in a sense, what “chance” systems do you implement in your creative process?
PH: Even though a good deal is pre-planned and arranged, once I put the lines onto the substrate the connections they form are their own. In each piece I repeat and use the same lines throughout. They’re projected and I draw them on freehand. It’s after the initial lines have been laid when I start to connect and straighten them, strengthening some areas and letting new paths form in others. The breadth of the line is dependent on how controlled my hand happens to be and where the line wants to attach. Every line in the painting is connected to something, apart from the edges. The new paths and connections still hold the memory of where the line began but has morphed into an altered version that only lets you glimpse at its true path.
NZ: Thank you for taking the time to speak with me!