October 2003
Barry Sparkman
Miami, Florida
barry@barrysparkman.com
www.barrysparkman.com
Artist’s Statement
I have always made things. My earliest memories include drawing with a ballpoint pen on odd bits of paper, in church or in the back seat of a car. Likely it was suggested as a means of keeping me still and quiet. Creating provided an escape. It opened a door to a perfect new world that was exclusively mine. Painting remains a place more than an activity for me still.The driving force behind my work is not the desire to produce objects. I paint because the physical act of making art and the solitude of the studio are intrinsic components of who I am. Like artist Paul Klee, I believe that the "process of making" is of integral importance in art. My paintings are part of a long tradition of abstract painting loosely tied to external and internal realities that begins with Kandinsky, continues through Miro, Klee, the New York School of the fifties, and thrives today in the paintings of artists such as Elizabeth Murray, Terry Winters, and Terence La Noue.
My paintings are records of a physical process and the energy and enthusiasm involved remains evident in the finished works. Brushstrokes are recorded in the layers of paint, often tracing an observable history. The entire process occurs on the canvas. The imagery created in these raw surfaces emerges solely from my subconscious and does not intentionally refer to real physical places or objects. Frequently, the shapes or symbols are whimsical and seem to become animated. Drawing and painting are integrated. The depicted space may range from flat and decorative to compositions that possess landscape qualities. Color choices are also intuitive.
My imagery has evolved through the disciplined silencing of logic and rationality. I try to impact the viewer's senses in a way that bypasses the impulse to use language to describe the work's content. When asked what my paintings are about, or what they mean, I respond that this cannot be described with words. There is no specific narrative content. I am seeking to evoke an emotional response or to set a mood rather than to communicate a specific message or a rational idea.
