This is culture. Perhaps, a more sincere form of self realization could occur through each individual's creation of personal stories and symbols. These paintings are the remnants of that kind of intimate search and journey. At times, the space in the work opens up into that of the landscape. Elemental thresholds of earth and sky, above and below develop. I use this type of division to emphasize a movement upward into growth and vitality, or the reverse relinquishment down into a state of fallow waiting. Winter into Spring and Summer into Fall. Other times, the space in the work flattens out and becomes a wall like surface, and as a homage, my painterly activity results in objects which have an iconic presence.
The work evolves in a slow process of accumulation, as I build up layer upon layer of gesso, charcoal, pastel, acrylic paints, and later on waxy oil pigment. I mix gestural, intuitive mark making with geometrical forms which I trace from templates. To make icons resembling tattoos, I draw directly with the paint. These are emphatic like welts, or they trail off into delicate imprints. Suggesting faded parchments or ancient fresco walls, this surface speaks of passage. The work reveals itself gradually, just as an archaeological site sheds its collective history. The lotus, primitive tree shapes, swirling eddies, crude notations suggesting an ancient musical script, organic hybrids that exist in a state of becoming: these are some of the characters which inhabit the personal space in the work.
Color assumes certain conditions at certain times. It may live as a luminous veil referring to a spiritual shine. It may be present as a fading patina of memory. In the end, I am fortunate if there is the occasional resonant statement which touches a shared sense of life and collective imagination.
Michael Barringer |
