John Barkley

Almost There

2015

My painting is an inquiry. I make images as a way of responding to experiences that are important to me. Experiences that help me to understand why I’m in this world often happens when I am outside in large open spaces. Painted images act as a tool. I respond to the spaces my art suggests. That response is usually non-verbal. I am interested in the experience of non-duality that “getting lost” in big spaces can sometimes produce for me. The paintings have gone through a range of artistic treatments with the recent years seeing a focus on space, light, textures, atmosphere and distance. My landscape paintings are made from memory, not from on-site drawings or photographs. I use memory as a filtering agent to remove non-essential visual elements. When a work is successful, it must have a sense of poetry. There is nothing “new...

My painting is an inquiry. I make images as a way of responding to experiences that are important to me. Experiences that help me to understand why I’m in this world often happens wh...