John Barkley

Art Brokerage: John Barkley Canadian Artist: b. 1964. Artist and scholar John Barkley began painting and drawing as a boy. He was encouraged by his artist-father with whom he went on painting trips in the Ottawa valley. A practicing professional artist since 1996, Barkley experiments with thick paint application and varied brushstrokes to create abstract landscapes that simultaneously evoke both a quiet contemplation of nature but also its chaotic excess and mystery. Today, Barkley creates dense, layered and purely abstract paintings inspired by his studies in philosophy, psychology and religion. In organic shapes, bright colors and dark voids, he interrogates the psychic terrain of human consciousness. In his studio, a conceptual point of entry is soon replaced by intuition and experiment as he ponders on how to depart from a mode of modern secular monophasic consciousness into an experience of interconnected consciousness with nature and all living things. What can we tell about human existence—its place within the greater scheme of life, but also how our views about our place in the world impact our relationship with the surrounding environment? Listings wanted.