Stephen Barry

Harvest of Hope - 1998

​My goal in painting is to telegraph an impression of how I feel about what I see…I don’t always understand the process, but I try to put this impression down in a way that will preserve the freshness of the first moments of the visual experience. I don’t pay attention to trends and try to vary my approach to fit the character and mood of everything painting. I begin with neutral oil washes directly on the canvas to work out the forms, values and the distribution of light. With the composition set, I concentrate on color patterns selecting, rejecting and modifying the color as I build up the painting. As the painting begins to live and breathe, I focus on edges and surface quality and strive to retain a feeling of spontaneity through rapid, but well thought out brush strokes.

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