John
Works
Abstract Works
Elixir
16’’ x 20’’
Felt #2
16’’ x 20’’
Homage
30’’ x 30’’
Opposites Meeting
20’’ x 40’’
Amalgam
16’’ x 20’’
Drawn #2
16’’ x 20’’
Epiphany
16’’ x 20’’
Jaunt
16’’ x 20’’
Rapture #3
16’’ x 20’’
Realms
16’’ x 20’’
Released
16’’ x 20’’
The Approach
16’’ x 20’’
Back and Forth
20’’ x 20’’
Emerging From Within #2
20’’ x 20’’
Memory Traces
20’’ x 20’’
The Fire Within
20’’ x 20’’
Spark Within
20’’ x 24’’
Entry In
30’’ x 30’’
Risen #2
30’’ x 30’’
Contraries in Motion #2
30’’ x 36’’
Once Again
36’’ x 30’’
Revision
36’’ x 30’’
Tinctures in Expanse
36’’ x 30’’
Traces in Space
36’’ x 30’’
Marred Surface
40’’ x 40’’
Prana Push
40’’ x 48’’
Interior Terrain
40’’ x 48’’
Underneath It All
40’’ x 48’’
Existing Within
48’’ x 48’’
Cosmic Garden Seed
48’’ x 60’’
Cosmic Shift
48’’ x 60’’
Red and Green Stream of Mind
48’’ x 60’’
Always Moving
48’’ x 72’’
Emerging And Receding #3
48’’ x 72’’
Fire, Water, and Light #4
72’’ x 48’’
From The Void
48’’ x 72’’
Towards an Embrace
48’’ x 72’’
Within The Realms
48’’ x 72’’
Cosmic Entry
54’’ x 84’’
That Which Awakens
54’’ x 84’’
Rhapsody Reflections #2
54’’ x 84’’
Within and Beyond
60’’ x 48’’
Enchanted Cascade
72’’ x 60’’
Meditation Moments
60’’ x 72’’
Moments After
60’’ x 72’’
Landscapes
Evening Approaches
30’’ x 30’’
A Way In
72’’ x 60’’
Almost There
72’’ x 60’’
Another View
30’’ x 60’’
Blue Path In
48’’ x 60’’
Coloured Entrance
20’’ x 20’’
Coloured Time
30’’ x 30’’
Creek to River
16’’ x 20’’
Gatineau Turn 2
20’’ x 20’’
Inside
20’’ x 20’’
In Between
24’’ x 24’’
Meech Creek Colours
36’’ x 36’’
Spring Fresh
20’’ x 24’’
The Invitation
48’’ x 60’’
The Other Side #2
16’’ x 20’’
The Painter’s Path #14
72’’ x 60’’
Vista Breeze
20’’ x 20’’
Biography
I am an experimental painter. I have been working on my craft since 1996. I start work with a conceptual point of entry and then work intuitively, in dialogue with the work. The art making process largely determines the completion of the piece, and one work often then leads to another. My experience within the studio is a catalyst for my departure from a mode of modern secular monophasic consciousness into an experience of interconnected consciousness with nature and all living things. My environmental concerns, existential questions, and my academic interests influence the starting point. In the work, I contemplate questions pertaining to ultimate meaning, death and issues of personal control.
In 2000, I wrote a Masters thesis which created a new hermeneutic of art based upon the work of Jung, Tillich, and Hiedegger, it was subsequently applied to the work of Roland Poulin. The thesis included significant discussion about the relationship between art, cosmogony, and the human psyche. In my research I have studied philosophers and theologians that challenge conventional wisdom and advocate the adoption of a new mythology. I have been developing a visual vocabulary to explore this idea.
My work is influenced by and linked to many Quebec artists. My painting application has recently been compared, by one critic, to Riopelle and Borduas, and the contrast between the organic and geometric to Charles Gagnon. I have been influenced by Poulin’s use of opposites to create tension, and his use of dark void forms. In my work I examine consciousness by using abstraction and a symbolic vocabulary. A visual vocabulary has been derived from natural elements and industry and is used as a vehicle for the examination and expression of the contemporary psyche.
– John Barkley
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