Past Exhibitions
Exhibition Works
Reflective (2005)
Fragile (2005)
Traversing I (2005)
Elapse (2005)
Enduring (2005)
Traversing II (2005)
Lament (2005)
Solace (2005)
Reminisce (2005)
Eternal (2005)
Exhibition Text
This new body of work Lost Souls reveals a continuation and extension of the ambient and abstract paintings of Kathy Barber.
This year has seen Barber shift away from a primary focus on the landforms, towards a more sensory focus that expresses emotive and spiritual responses to landscape and place. The artist has brought to the forefront, a spiritual aspect that has always underpinned all other themes and techniques. Her new paintings are based on landforms, but are presented as primarily spiritual (rather than physical) sites. These are ‘places’ of the heart, mind, spirit and memory. They are derived from the physical world, but the result is an ethereal depiction of the possibilities for various ideas and feelings, described with a pared back and decisive simplicity.
The Lost Souls paintings show the artist’s response to the fluid and seamless character of light and the potential expansiveness of idea or thought. They also capture and explore fragments of personal memory.
Barber studies the changes and the expanse of the landscape in relation to herself. She layers the transparent oil paint immaculately and carefully, so as not to lose or diminish the gentle ambience and the meditative qualities of her work. Layers of paint are applied in carefully blended planes, and the layered-ness of her technique imparts a mystic quality to the work.
The subtle textural range invigorates the paintings and gently animates them. Barber’s pristine surface qualities make an emphasis on the strong sense of shifting and ambiguous light; of changing time; day or night.
Kathy Barber considers her paintings to be like meditations, whereby each is reflective of and connected with the whole (body of work), but each is a unique experience of place and the land as well. The artist’s responses are communicated uniquely within each painting, and there is a definite sense of purpose in Kathy Barber’s work. Nothing is arbitrary. Everything is well considered and meaningfully worked into each painting.
The idea that there is ‘beauty in the darkness’ is evident in these luminous studies of light and colour, as they change and develop in the way that a day unfolds, and in the way that light moves across the landscape.
This year has seen Barber shift away from a primary focus on the landforms, towards a more sensory focus that expresses emotive and spiritual responses to landscape and place. The artist has brought to the forefront, a spiritual aspect that has always underpinned all other themes and techniques. Her new paintings are based on landforms, but are presented as primarily spiritual (rather than physical) sites. These are ‘places’ of the heart, mind, spirit and memory. They are derived from the physical world, but the result is an ethereal depiction of the possibilities for various ideas and feelings, described with a pared back and decisive simplicity.
The Lost Souls paintings show the artist’s response to the fluid and seamless character of light and the potential expansiveness of idea or thought. They also capture and explore fragments of personal memory.
Barber studies the changes and the expanse of the landscape in relation to herself. She layers the transparent oil paint immaculately and carefully, so as not to lose or diminish the gentle ambience and the meditative qualities of her work. Layers of paint are applied in carefully blended planes, and the layered-ness of her technique imparts a mystic quality to the work.
The subtle textural range invigorates the paintings and gently animates them. Barber’s pristine surface qualities make an emphasis on the strong sense of shifting and ambiguous light; of changing time; day or night.
Kathy Barber considers her paintings to be like meditations, whereby each is reflective of and connected with the whole (body of work), but each is a unique experience of place and the land as well. The artist’s responses are communicated uniquely within each painting, and there is a definite sense of purpose in Kathy Barber’s work. Nothing is arbitrary. Everything is well considered and meaningfully worked into each painting.
The idea that there is ‘beauty in the darkness’ is evident in these luminous studies of light and colour, as they change and develop in the way that a day unfolds, and in the way that light moves across the landscape.
All images and text copyright © 2024 the Artists & Milford House Ltd.