Lucy Barber

Lucy Barber

“LucyBarber…a tonal painter who brings a rare sense of poetry to the act of depicton.” -Maureen Mullarkey, The New York Sun

My drawings and paintings are grounded in realism; they are a response to my perceptions of the world filtered through my life experiences, memories, imagination and dreams. More than ever, the making of drawings and paintings is a refuge for these challenging times, and as an art-maker, it provides the richest of human experiences; to explore the mysteries of perception, the processes of seeing and the application of paint and color. To slow down, to be quiet. It truly becomes a sacred space where what I see and make transforms into something beyond itself.

My subjects are still life, flora and landscape. Early on, inspired by thinking that objects for still life were like humans on a stage, I would imagine they were literally “alive” and so arranged objects in corners of boxes for that purpose. What evolved over time out of this idea of objects being alive with energy is the idea of “presence” that can be embodied in the stillness and stature of things, which can become “sense of place” in landscape.

A humble idea, my work is simply about an artist’s experience of seeing and being in the world and letting the transformation of the subject travel to the canvas; a refuge for myself and for the viewer.