Featured Artist Barbara L. Clark

Enjoy the exquisite portfolio of painter Barbara L. Clark, and see more of her work by visiting her website.

 

 

What are your goals?

Painterly realism is my artistic goal. So far I have worked from own photographs and am completely enamored with the compositional chaos of nature. At this stage of my development, I am not so interested in “creating” the image but in painting an exaggerated reality. Essentially I am accepting the uncontrived composition of nature and focusing on the illusion of dimension, color, texture and light. It would be fair to say I am technique driven at this point.

 

 

My paintings require an immense investment of concentration and focus so keeping the work challenging makes this effort possible. Sometimes I think about a painting for a while but end up getting bored with the idea before I even start. I like the thinking part.

Of course, I would like to find a gallery that is a good fit for me and my paintings. Since my fine art painting career only started in 2011, that is a goal I have not yet accomplished. The business of art is very different than the art of business.

 

 

What are you working on now?

I have just started my second painting of a jumbled up traveler’s palm. It is my largest painting to date (“36” x 48”) and I am incorporating several techniques I learned at a recent 10-day workshop in San Francisco with classical realist painter Sadie Valerie.

 

 

I am working in Golden Liquid Acrylics on gesso board. I start with a iron oxide red base color and build up with solids and many glazes.

 

 

My next painting is always rattling around in the back of my brain. At this time I am envisioning a large still life of my red objects (I am a fool for anything red). It will be set it up in my studio so I can paint from life. I have learned the art world is generally very critical of referencing from photos so I thought I would give this a go. I might even paint it with oils. We will see.

 

 

What inspires you?

Over the years I have studied architecture, photography, publishing, and decorative painting. I studied tromp l’oeil painting with many of today’s masters and am certain that has influenced my painting style. (Interestingly the paintings I have personally collected have been impressionistic or abstract.) A recent profile in the blog “Fine Art Views” described my paintings as “Gracious botanical realism paintings that incorporate a deep love for the flora of Florida.”

 

 

For my paintings, it is color. I respond to color all the time… The sun coming through the orangish pinkish bougainvillea outside my studio window, the bluish green of a Bismark Palm with that white haze over it, a book could be written describing the sky and cloud colors in Florida, the bright green new palm shoots growing out of black charred pasture from a recent burn, the insanity of orchids… There really is no end to the beauty surrounding us, so inspiration is my state of mind.