Patrick Puckett

Bold, clear brushstrokes make the various settings of Mississippi-based artist Patrick Puckett’s latest work instantly familiar yet unique to each painting’s subject. A blond woman lounges on a subtly Southwestern-style area rug with overgrown houseplants matching her light green one-piece (Watermelon, oil on canvas); a shirtless young man stands among pianos and the clutter of a well-lived-in space (The Maestro, mixed media on paper); three fit people just out of the pool – or maybe on their way back in – with two of them wrapped in bright patterned towels that cut through a background of thick green leaves (The Fate Triad, mixed media on paper). All these scenarios echo lives you might have led, yet in Puckett’s use of these lush colored mediums, art is more an enhancement of life than imitation. – James Scott