Petey Becker

Artist Statement:

 My work is an extension of my love and exploration of the natural world, a fascination with the ephemeral nature of perception, and a layman’s love of physics. My landscape work is a way for me to step out of – as much as is possible – a human-centric vision of the world. Working in watercolor, ink, acrylic, I play with what I think I see before me. It is also a way to try to see the forces that forged the environment around me on the continuum of space and time. The past as it exists in the present and encapsulates the future. My wildlife work draws from years of working with and alongside other species both domestic and wild. I cherish their uniqueness, completeness, and wisdom and deeply mourn their loss as so many are pushed over the ledge of extinction.

Work

Featured Work

Petey Becker

Reflection 1

$750.00

Petey Becker

Reflection 2

$750.00

Petey Becker

Reflection 3

$750.00

Biography:

The worlds of science and art have always been intertwined for me. Born in Southern California, raised in N.J., I have a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and an MS from Antioch. While at RISD a presentation by Paul Winter with the wolves who inspired him, as well as the work of Loren Eisley, Rachel Carson, and John McPhee among others, along with the work of the great Asian “nature world” artists, started me on a life-long path of wild life art. Moving to the White Mountains in the early 70s where working from life my knowledge of various species and their habitats grew to the point where my focus moved away from painting and I became an advocate for environmental and social justice. In the early 80s I moved to a lake in Vermont where I still live.  I received awards and recognition for my work including inclusion in New Hampshire’s Creative Women, award for creative drawing at the Sharon Arts Center, and selection for shows at institutions such as the deCordova Museum.  I am one of the founding artists of AVA Gallery and Art Center in Lebanon, N.H.

Upon my retirement in 2017 I determined to go back to painting, with a focus on abstract landscapes since the geology of the land and the story it tells fascinates me.  A commission brought me back to the animal world, and I now find myself drawn once again to wildlife art and as well as to the landscape. 

William Beebee’s words inform my work both as an advocate and as an artist:

“The beauty and genius of a work of art may be reconceived, though its first material expression be destroyed; a vanished harmony may yet again inspire the composer, but when the last individual of a race of living things breathes no more, another heaven and another earth must pass before such a one can be again.”

And the words of Terry Tempest Williams assuage my feelings of helplessness in these times. “What has been weathered, worn, and whittled away is as powerful as what remains. Our undoing is also our becoming.” Williams reminds us that “beauty is its own form of resistance, and that water can crack stone.”