SIGN SERIES

Sign Series is the first of three bodies of work that explores the form of vernacular architecture, in this case temporary handmade billboards on Rt. 5 in Southern Maryland, as vessels full of meaning. The shape is derived from the size of the billboards that Patterson sees while driving down Rt. 5. Most of the billboards are handmade with scrap material and a lot of the time the landscape or highway construction sign visually combines with the billboard because there are holes in the actual structure, allowing the color of the wood and the landscape to combine. Patterson continually works on this series and the shape has changed from this original shape to more vertical to more horizontal shapes.

She is interested in it because for most people, their visual world is full of things like billboards where we don't give the structure much thought beyond the practical. Patterson believe that even these things hold meaning and affect our everyday lives. The material is canvas from the art store (because she is using the language of paint with all of its traditions), scrap wood that she has salvaged from Lowes (because most of our buildings and structures are made from inexpensive wood that holds the structure), and found wood (from local structures like barns and buildings).

The series has been exhibited at Kathryn Markel Fine Art in NYC, in Patterson's first solo museum show at Southwest State University Art Museum in Minnesota, and at AxD Gallery (also an architecture firm) in Philadelphia.