John Barkley

Works
  • John Barkley, Heart Felt, 2022
    Heart Felt, 2022
  • John Barkley, Meridians, 2025
    Meridians, 2025
  • John Barkley, Parading Colours, 2025
    Parading Colours, 2025
  • John Barkley, All Things Passionate, 2025
    All Things Passionate, 2025
  • John Barkley, Always Moving, 2021
    Always Moving, 2021
  • John Barkley, Always There, 2024
    Always There, 2024
  • John Barkley, Back and Forth, 2020
    Back and Forth, 2020
  • John Barkley, Colour Emerges #7, 2025
    Colour Emerges #7, 2025
  • John Barkley, Contraries in Motion #2, 2009
    Contraries in Motion #2, 2009
  • John Barkley, Cosmic Entry, 2022
    Cosmic Entry, 2022
  • John Barkley, Cosmic Garden Seed, 2020
    Cosmic Garden Seed, 2020
  • John Barkley, Cosmic Shift , 2023
    Cosmic Shift , 2023
  • John Barkley, Drawn #2, 2021
    Drawn #2, 2021
  • John Barkley, Elixir, 2022
    Elixir, 2022
  • John Barkley, Emerging And Receding #3, 2022
    Emerging And Receding #3, 2022
  • John Barkley, Emerging From Within #2, 2020
    Emerging From Within #2, 2020
  • John Barkley, Enchanted Cascade, 2022
    Enchanted Cascade, 2022
  • John Barkley, Epiphany, 2022
    Epiphany, 2022
  • John Barkley, Existing Within, 2023
    Existing Within, 2023
  • John Barkley, Felt #2, 2020
    Felt #2, 2020
  • John Barkley, Fire, Water, and Light #4, 2018
    Fire, Water, and Light #4, 2018
  • John Barkley, From The Void, 2021
    From The Void, 2021
  • John Barkley, Immersed, 2024
    Immersed, 2024
  • John Barkley, In Its Becoming, 2024
    In Its Becoming, 2024
  • John Barkley, In The Breath, 2024
    In The Breath, 2024
  • John Barkley, Interior Terrain, 2009
    Interior Terrain, 2009
  • John Barkley, Meditation Moments, 2021
    Meditation Moments, 2021
  • John Barkley, Memory Traces, 2020
    Memory Traces, 2020
  • John Barkley, Moments After, 2021
    Moments After, 2021
  • John Barkley, New Links, 2024
    New Links, 2024
  • John Barkley, Once Again, 2022
    Once Again, 2022
  • John Barkley, Prana Push, 2021
    Prana Push, 2021
  • John Barkley, Quarternary Return #3, 2025
    Quarternary Return #3, 2025
  • John Barkley, Rapture #3, 2019
    Rapture #3, 2019
  • John Barkley, Realms, 2022
    Realms, 2022
  • John Barkley, Red and Green Stream of Mind, 2019
    Red and Green Stream of Mind, 2019
  • John Barkley, Released, 2019
    Released, 2019
  • John Barkley, Rhapsody Reflection 3, 2021
    Rhapsody Reflection 3, 2021
  • John Barkley, Rhapsody Reflections #2, 2020
    Rhapsody Reflections #2, 2020
  • John Barkley, Risen #2, 2020
    Risen #2, 2020
  • John Barkley, Spark Within, 2020
    Spark Within, 2020
  • John Barkley, Still Yearning, 2024
    Still Yearning, 2024
  • John Barkley, That Which Awakens, 2021
    That Which Awakens, 2021
  • John Barkley, The Approach, 2021
    The Approach, 2021
  • John Barkley, The Fire Within, 2020
    The Fire Within, 2020
  • John Barkley, Tinctures in Expanse, 2022
    Tinctures in Expanse, 2022
  • John Barkley, Towards an Embrace, 2021
    Towards an Embrace, 2021
  • John Barkley, Traces in Space, 2022
    Traces in Space, 2022
  • John Barkley, Within and Beyond, 2022
    Within and Beyond, 2022
  • John Barkley, Within The Realms, 2022
    Within The Realms, 2022
  • John Barkley, Almost There, 2015
    Almost There, 2015
  • John Barkley, Another View, 2018
    Another View, 2018
  • John Barkley, Blue Path In, 2012
    Blue Path In, 2012
  • John Barkley, Coloured Entrance, 2022
    Coloured Entrance, 2022
  • John Barkley, Coloured Inlet, 2022-2024
    Coloured Inlet, 2022-2024
  • John Barkley, Creek to River, 2022
    Creek to River, 2022
  • John Barkley, Gatineau Turn 2, 2022
    Gatineau Turn 2, 2022
  • John Barkley, In Between, 2021
    In Between, 2021
  • John Barkley, Inside, 2022
    Inside, 2022
  • John Barkley, Meech Creek Colours, 2021
    Meech Creek Colours, 2021
  • John Barkley, Park Terrain, 2023
    Park Terrain, 2023
  • John Barkley, Rugged Inlet, 2024
    Rugged Inlet, 2024
  • John Barkley, Spring Fresh, 2020
    Spring Fresh, 2020
  • John Barkley, The Invitation, 2012
    The Invitation, 2012
  • John Barkley, The Painter's Path #14, 2021
    The Painter's Path #14, 2021
  • John Barkley, Trail Vista #1 & #2, 2024
    Trail Vista #1 & #2, 2024
  • John Barkley, Venture In, 2024-2025
    Venture In, 2024-2025
  • John Barkley, Vista Breeze, 2023
    Vista Breeze, 2023
Overview

"My environmental concerns, existential questions, and my academic interests influence the starting point. In the work, I contemplate questions pertaining to ultimate meaning, life and issues of personal control."

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, life 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

Biography

John R. Barkley is an experimental painter living in Chelsea, Quebec. He was born in Ottawa in 1964, and raised in the Ottawa valley. As a boy, his father, an artist as well, encouraged him to draw and paint, and eventually took him to paint on sojourns into the country.

 

As a young man, he returned to Ottawa to study. In addition to painting, he is also a dedicated scholar, whose studies and interests factor significantly in his art work. His degrees include a Master of Arts in Religion, from Carleton University (2001); a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Visual Art, Magna Cum Laude, University of Ottawa (1996); Bachelor of Arts, Honours, Psychology, from Carleton University (1989); and a Bachelor of Arts, Law and Psychology, Carleton University. In 2000, he wrote a Master's thesis which created a new hermeneutic of art, based upon the work of Jung, Tillich, and Heidegger, he applied it in an analysis of the work of Roland Poulin.

 

Barkley has been pursuing a professional artistic practice since 1996. Over the last 20 years he has been able to work in his studio, in Wakefield Quebec, as a full time artist. Barkley's paintings explore humanity's relationship to nature and his existential concerns while experimenting with paint application.

 

Barkley has exhibited nationally and internationally, and is in collections around the world. He is represented both nationally and internationally.

 

He begins work with a conceptual idea but then the art making process largely directs the completion, and  one work often then leads to another. In his work he examines consciousness by using abstraction. His work is inspired by the idea that what exists within the human psyche is interconnected with what is happening in nature.  He states that our ideas about existence effect who we think we are and how we interact with each other and the environment.

 

He has developed a visual vocabulary drawn from both nature and industry.He often contrasts the organic with the geometric, and makes use of other visual opposites to create tension in the work.

 

At times he also uses dark void forms to symbolize the unconscious, the unknown, and refer to the initial state of being "Nothingness" as embedded in numerous creation myths and esoteric texts. Barkley frequently uses the image of water or the void itself in combination with an imposed linear structure, to arrive at a critical narrative while investigating paint application. This approach also enables him to explore the potential of combining painterly abstraction with hard edge abstraction while initiating both aesthetic content and cultural critique.

 

Barkley's work connects to a range of Canadian artistic traditions. Writers have noted the influence of the Canadian landscape artist Tom Thomson and Group of Seven while also recognizing the Automatiste influence of Borduas and Riopelle in surface application and process method. Barkley is also influenced by the German Neo-expressionists, particularly the surface application and symbolism of Anselm Kiefer.

 

However he is most influenced by the introspective approach he learned while studying at the University of Ottawa with Catherine Everett and Roland Poulin.