Pati Beachley

Pati Beachley is a non-binary sculptor living in Pittsburgh. She holds an MFA in Sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University. Originally from Baltimore, she serves as Chair of the Art & Design and Professor at Seton Hill University in Greensburg, PA. She exhibits and performs casting workshops actively in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Washington, DC, Virginia, Maryland, and Tennessee, with multiple solo shows, national shows, curated, and juried exhibitions. She began casting 30 years ago in a mostly male dominated field, adding a queer narrative by casting carpet and fibrous materials.

The work mixes masculine and feminine attributes forcing a dialogue into gendered text and image. The rope words complicate meaning, as “tender” can be soft parts, tenderloin, tender heart, or how we pay. Fiber is a metaphor for things twisted, bound, or tethered. Coated with lipstick, they index a physical connection to mouth, to parole. The cast, carpeted grounds, mannered and graffitied, beckon a narrative or a figurative reference as much as they pretend to be an abstracted, painterly object. The cast yarn words present an unraveling of projected emotions, adding significance to a cliché patterned sentiment.

Photo by Emily Franicola