Barbara Pattern is a constantly growing alternative visual microcosm that we discovered not so long ago, but we were immediately hooked and have been big fans ever since!
Barbara Pattern Beke Barbara - by her own admission - started as a self-serving creative compulsion, as is often the case, and today the development of the visual alternative that Barbara Pattern illustrations represent has become a kind of mission. As the often schematic, but always filled with different content faces, graphic details, enriching flora and built environment unfold more and more, it increasingly demands a breakthrough from the display into the real space... (we could also say into print.)
This is how the stories of the figures unfold, which in the not-too-distant future will coalesce into a myth. These are the first steps. It sounds strange, but in reality nothing special happens: Barbara draws, who loves her work, and she takes the pictures home and continues to love them at home.
"It all started somewhere in the 80s and at the end of the world in the wilderness. I think this disadvantage is important to mention, if only because in retrospect it is possible to recognize how much the aesthetics left behind by socialism, with its bulky public sculptures and endless rows of barrel cubes, influenced my visual world.
When I was 2 years old, my great-grandmother gave me a blank notebook and a set of crayons. Since then, I've practically been in that flow. Of course, I only learned about this concept at MOME. That was a misunderstanding. I went to a vocational high school in the middle of a housing estate...there wasn't much internet, but I still couldn't decide what I wanted. Then I found out there was such a thing as pattern design. I liked it. So I got a degree in textiles. It turned out that I'm also hardworking...so I got another one. But the most defining thing about university wasn't the time I spent there, but the time I didn't. Then came Erasmus. Germany. Berlin. (Then a very small New York.) So there I was at the end of university. It was clear. Back to Berlin. It's just that personal life intervened. Not long after, I moved home. Somewhere here, my story started to end and Pattern's story started. That name is a joke, I got it at university.
So I was at home and the only culture I was interested in was cheese. But this little step back was good for me to realize how much I had nothing to do with textiles. I started studying graphic design in junior high school. Then one day they sent us home from classes saying that the world would end tomorrow, or at least Covid would be here. And then I started posting, what had previously only been made for the account... that's when "Barbara Pattern" started. Since then, our paths have diverged. I think it was necessary. Because of courage. Miss Pattern is self-realizing, draws, learns, experiments, develops, competes, wins international awards and exhibits everywhere. And I answer her emails." - says Barbara about the start of her illustration project.