Pittsburgh artist highlights community gardens in silkscreen series
“I wanted to very directly highlight and celebrate the kinds of areas that I knew were being overlooked but I also knew were giving a lot of value and places of restoration or comfort or peace to different people.”
By Kimberly Rooney
pghcitypaper
May 21, 2021
Excerpt:
Through a collaboration with Neighborhood Allies, local artist Charlie Barber began a series of silkscreen prints of seven local urban gardens. The prints are created and sold through Pullproof Studio, and all proceeds will go to the gardens featured.
“I wanted to make supporting these places as easy and attractive as possible,” says Barber. “My hope is that more people know about them, that they continue to serve the communities they’re embedded in, and, you know, they get a little more attention.”
Barber has been a practicing artist in Pittsburgh for six years. A Carnegie Mellon University alum, Barber lived in Boston following graduation before moving back to Pittsburgh in 2016. The city’s landscape and idiosyncratic houses caught his eye, and he began a series of pen illustrations and silkscreens of Pittsburgh houses.
While the project was well received, with many people reaching out to Barber with commissions, when he saw the protests and social unrest over racial inequity and police brutality during the summer of 2020, Barber re-evaluated what he wanted to do with his art.
