PATTY MEOTTI Art Gallery 2014

Patty Meotti
The art of Patty Meotti
Italian elegance, Italian color
By Jason Lista

GREAT BAY – The images are mysterious, ghostlike. In one painting, colorfully robed figures walk across an Eastern bazaar. In another, the scene is Rome in a downpour, where pedestrians clad in hues of green, red, or yellow make their way through the streets of the ancient capital. But they are not facing you; they are all walking away. In Patty Meotti’s paintings, they are always walking away. And the effect is haunting as it is curious.

Meotti is from Milan, Italy, and was born on the day of San Valentino, or Valentine’s Day, and “transmits all her energy and love,” she says, into her paintings. She is a formally trained artist who also paints extremely realistic portraits from a photograph of the person. Her preferred technique is acrylic painting, but she also works with oil, watercolors, and pencil.
In Italy she attended the Liceo Artistico, and then went on to the Instituto Europeo di Design where she graduated as a Hyperrealisti Illustrator, or hyper realistic illustrator.

A common theme that runs through most of Meotti’s paintings is hats. She is inspired she says “by the Italian economic boom of the 60s, Fellini, Via Veneto in Roma.” Federico Fellini’s iconic film, La Dolce Vita, set in post-war Rome acts as constant inspiration for the artist, with the glamour and elegance of the Roman people portrayed in many of her artworks, outlines of people painted in rich colors with hats and all walking away. “You don’t see the face, so they don’t give you problems when you watch them,” she says as she chuckles.
The effect is dreamlike, creating a sense of longing and nostalgia; of Time and memories of people slipping away from the grip of the viewer. Meotti recently lost her only sister, as well as her parents. In her Italian accent she says, “I am missing them very much, but I live in the paradise now.” Meotti resides on the French side but says “I very much love the Dutch side.”
But she draws creative energy from her loss, transforming heartache and pain into images of color and vibrant movement on canvas.
“They call me here Madam Chapoux,” she says as she laughs, because of her love for hats. Chapoux is French for hats. “I use colors in a special way,” Meotti explains. “It’s not only one but the combinations,” she describes. She blends her acrylics and chooses her colors carefully so that there is an aesthetic harmony on the canvas. “I study for the combination of the colors,” Meotti goes on. Her time in art school gave her a thorough understanding of the world of color.

“I use acrylics, but if you use the same tube, doesn’t come out like mine,” she says proudly. Her colors are subtly blended to give the effect of movement on canvas, like a blurred image.
Her works are available for viewing on her Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/MeottiPatty

People interested can also reach her at her email address [email protected]

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