Backyards of Key West Gallery

Backyards of Key West is Mark Baratto's gallery in the Shops at Mallory Square, in Suite 115, across from Cuban Coffee Queen with the entrance over by the Aquarium. That is worth writing down, because the Shops are a warren and plenty of people walk past the door twice. The subject is the island itself, and specifically the parts of it people actually remember: conch cottages and their shutters and porches, Sloppy Joe's, the Hemingway House, the Custom House, Smathers Beach, Mile Zero, the buoy, and a great many chickens.

The way the work is made is unusual enough to explain properly. Baratto photographs a scene himself, then paints over the photograph on a tablet, using a stylus and a brush he built, working the color and depth by hand. When the painting is finished he deletes the photo layer underneath it, which leaves a painting rather than a treated photograph. Those are then printed on canvas using giclée, hand-stretched over wooden bars, and arrive ready to hang. It is a genuinely hand-made process using digital tools, and the gallery is straightforward about that rather than pretending otherwise.

The catalogue is deep. There are Key West Houses, Bars & Restaurants, a collection cheerfully titled Beaches, Landmarks & Chickens, an oversized collection for people with a wall to fill, a coastal collection, and a black and white collection, which together run to several hundred pieces. There are limited edition series built around the roosters, the buoy and Mile Zero. And there is 100 Hemingways, a run of original works rather than prints, for anyone who wants a one-of-one rather than an edition.

How Baratto got here is a reasonable Key West story. He spent his career advising other people on how to build a business around what they loved, noticed he had never done it himself, and started by posting photographs of Key West houses on social media. That turned into a podcast about the island, and eventually into this. One planning note: the gallery keeps weekday hours and a short Saturday, and it is closed on Sundays, which catches people out given where it sits. Check before you walk over.