John
Works
Abstract Works
Rhapsody Reflection #3
40’’ x 60’’
Always Moving
48’’ x 72’’
Always There
40’’ x 60’’
Amalgam
16’’ x 20’’
Back and Forth
20’’ x 20’’
Beneath The Surface
20’’ x 40’’
Contraries in Motion #2
30’’ x 36’’
Cosmic Entry
54’’ x 84’’
Cosmic Garden Seed
48’’ x 60’’
Cosmic Shift
48’’ x 60’’
Drawn #2
16’’ x 20’’
Elixir
16’’ x 20’’
Emerging And Receding #3
48’’ x 72’’
Emerging From Within #2
20’’ x 20’’
Enchanted Cascade
72’’ x 60’’
Epiphany
16’’ x 20’’
Existing Within
48’’ x 48’’
Felt #2
16’’ x 20’’
Fire, Water, and Light #4
72’’ x 48’’
From The Void
48’’ x 72’’
Immersed
40’’ x 60’’
In Its Becoming
36’’ x 48’’
Interior Terrain
40’’ x 48’’
In The Breath
40’’ x 60’’
Jaunt
16’’ x 20’’
Marred Surface
40’’ x 40’’
Meditation Moments
60’’ x 72’’
Memory Traces
20’’ x 20’’
Moments After
60’’ x 72’’
New Links
20’’ x 40’’
Once Again
36’’ x 30’’
Prana Push
40’’ x 48’’
Rapture #3
16’’ x 20’’
Realms
16’’ x 20’’
Red and Green Stream of Mind
48’’ x 60’’
Released
16’’ x 20’’
Rhapsody Reflections #2
54’’ x 84’’
Risen #2
30’’ x 30’’
Spark Within
20’’ x 24’’
Still Yearning
40’’ x 60’’
That Which Awakens
54’’ x 84’’
The Approach
16’’ x 20’’
The Fire Within
20’’ x 20’’
Tinctures in Expanse
36’’ x 30’’
Towards an Embrace
48’’ x 72’’
Traces in Space
36’’ x 30’’
Within and Beyond
60’’ x 48’’
Within The Realms
48’’ x 72’’
Landscapes
Rugged Inlet
30’’ x 36’’
Trial Vista #1 & #2
20’’ x 32’’
Almost There
72’’ x 60’’
Another View
30’’ x 60’’
Blue Path In
48’’ x 60’’
Coloured Entrance
20’’ x 20’’
Creek to River
16’’ x 20’’
Gatineau Turn 2
20’’ x 20’’
In Between
24’’ x 24’’
Inside
20’’ x 20’’
Meech Creek Colours
36’’ x 36’’
Spring Fresh
20’’ x 24’’
The Invitation
48’’ x 60’’
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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