Gerald Barnes
Do you like the work of Monet, Rauschenberg, Turner? They’re all fabulous artists of course but you only get to view one artist and one style at a time! But what if you could combine them all at one go? That’s what collage allows me to do. I can pull images from a wide variety of resources and styles, add additional images or textures in acrylic, pencil or ink and create my own vision. A final coat of varnish protects the work and gives it maturity.
I was born in Ireland and travel extensively. This, combined with my background in architecture and graphics, is what influences my art the most. I love ambiguity and the juxtapositioning of objects and images, many bearing little if any relationship to each other. I love seeing text on images – Chinese, Arabic, Sanskrit – none of which I can read. With my own personal twist I often include words or sayings in Irish in my work with the meaning reflected in the title of the piece in English. Working on small panels makes me focus my ideas and to ruthlessly eliminate material which does not work. My subject matter usually deals with the human emotions of love, fear, nostalgia, etc. – but also with the issues of the day – war, peace and justice.
I use wood panels as they are strong but light and can easily be sanded down to start from scratch when things go wrong – which happens rather a lot.
