Paintings by Mark Barry
at THE GALLERY at Central Vermont Medical Center
Through August 4, 2017
Berlin, Vt – Mark Barry celebrates life with paint brush in hand. No moment is too small – kids playing on the swings, dogs in the park, a couple dancing in the kitchen, bicyclists taking on a hill or the pitcher winding up on the mound – and he captures each one with bold, brilliant color often in large scale – as if he needs to paint large to capture each moment’s importance. Mark Barry paints happiness and celebrates the gift of time. He paints a deep appreciation of life – and the viewer quickly realizes it is contagious.
I paint the seemingly ordinary moments of life that aren’t ordinary at all. In a world that often seems to be twisting, turning and chaotic, to capture just a second in time or a fleeting glimpse of motion in a painting allows for a semblance of stability. Figures in a landscape, working in a garden, sailing a boat or an interior scene of a family at dinner, in each painting I try to make the connections between the human forms and the environment. Whether it be through emphatic use of color or line, the exaggeration of an arm, a facial expression or a gently curving road, guiding a cyclist through a country landscape, each element of a painting is pared to it’s simplest form needed to compose a contemporary vignette.
Mark Barry
Mark was born in Worcester, Massachusetts and received his BFA from the Swain School of Design (now UMass at Dartmouth) in 1981. He studied on the graduate level at Brooklyn College and Johns Hopkins University. Mark and his wife Sandra, also an artist, moved to Vermont from Maryland a few years ago.
This is Mark Barry’s first exhibit in central Vermont. He has exhibited his oil paintings, painted ceramics and etchings in venues across the country since 1981. His work is in the collection of the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Baltimore Sun and numerous corporate and private collections. Mark is also a contributing writer for ionarts, a blog for music, arts and literature. You can find him at markbarry.blogspot.com and also on Instagram.
THE GALLERY at Central Vermont Medical Center is located in the lobby of the hospital and is open every day. The work exhibited there can be purchased directly from the artist.
For more information on THE GALLERY at CVMC please contact Maureen O’Connor Burgess (802-279-6403) or moetown52@comcast.net.