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Detail photo from "The Trials and Tribulations of Evelyn Masters: A collection of prints and drawings by Audrey Patten" at Big Car Gallery (Michelle Pemberton / Indy.com)

A pop surrealist and printmaking major at Herron School of Art, Audrey Patten became closer to the character of Evelyn Masters she portrayed in a variety of media. (Michelle Pemberton / Indy.com)

The story started with a sketch.

A sketch of a little girl in cowboy boots, in a little skirt, with a little applique heart on her chest, and a deer skull on her head.

The little girl held a length of string, and attached to the string was a dead bird being pulled like a wooden toy duck.

The girl was Evelyn Masters, and her twisted story is told now through the macabre yet playful drawings, prints and installation work of 23-year-old artist Audrey Patten. Those works of art are part of Patten's exhibition, "The Trials and Tribulations of Evelyn Masters," at Big Car Gallery.

"For some reason I really liked the character, and I was really kind of connecting with her. I don't know why," said Patten, reclining on a chair inside Big Car on a recent snowy afternoon. "It's sad and lonely, mainly because she's hiding behind her insecurities and doesn't really open up to a lot of people because she's afraid of getting hurt. Which is very similar to where I've been in the past.

"It's almost metaphorical. I have tattoos and piercings, and my ears are gauged out. And a lot of people see that as something I do as a front that I put up, something I'm hiding behind, which, I guess, maybe it is."

Patten appreciates the simple aesthetics of her body art, just as she does her art on the walls at Big Car. But both the corporeal manipulations and the artistic constructions have a deeper meaning.

"Simply, I think she's an escalated version of me," Patten said. "She's a pessimistic version."

Pessimistic, indeed.

Patten, who is in her final semester of a printmaking degree at Herron School of Art, was recently featured in the inaugural edition of Stretching Canvas, a national lowbrow and pop-surrealism magazine. The Big Car exhibit is her first solo show, too, and by the end of opening night, the Brownsburg High School alumna had sold all but four pieces.

So where does the darkness come from?

Take a guess.

Junior high. And it started with a boy.

Self-confidence problems set in, followed by depression and body issues, she said, which were fought with counseling and medication. And art.

"It has been a battle of trying to learn how to like myself and love myself, and my art is definitely cathartic for me," Patten said, tucking her hands into a mustard hoodie with an Ed Gein patch safety-pinned to the right breast. "But the darkness keeps coming out. I mix with the wrong people. I date the wrong guys. I've had people stab me in the back, isolate me."

Patten finds herself in a better place now, though her next show, she guesses, will be equally dark.

"I will not end up like Evelyn," said Patten, laughing. "I'll be a crazy old lady, but I won't end up like Evelyn."