Bob Barron Solo Show Retrospective: Time Past and Time Present

About

Bob Barron describes his work:

If my work is about anything, it is about the passage of time made corporeal through certain images, surfaces and textures.

I work with mixed media and oil on canvas. Some of my work is made from waste card that I collect from various outlets. I like the idea of recycling material which has been discarded and thrown out as refuse, and turning it into art. Colour is kept minimal as an alternative to the high gloss of most modern advertising imagery and also to emphasise the surface and texture of the work.

I also like working with slate because of the age and nature of the material. Slate is of sedimentary origin, formed from the deposits of minerals collected on the beds of ancient seas. Eventually, these sea beds were pushed to the surface and the deposits were quarried to provide shelter from the winds and the rain. I am interested in the journey from the seabed to the quarry, from the quarry to the rooftop, and from the rooftop to the artwork.

Alongside mixed media work, I continue to use traditional oil on canvas. Paint is evenly applied, flat, without gesture and with clean lines as a counterpoint to the torn, scored card and the eroded, broken slate.

I am interested in the life of the mind and of feeling, but, nevertheless, people confronting the work will make of it what they will.