PHILIP BARLOW

(b.1968 Pietermaritzburg, South Africa)

Philip Barlow describes his work as a step towards abstraction. It is primarily the exploration of light and the relationship of colour, where he at first captures his images with a camera and then translates them into a painted format. He is interested in the concept of capturing “the moment”, a millisecond in time when everything lines up perfectly. His paintings seek to explore and demonstrate this, rather like a wonderfully composed climax of a symphony, a perfect marriage. His paintings also give us a glimpse in time where form, light and colour come together in all their complexity. 

Philip has a deep appreciation and love for the power and science of colour. Careful tonal shifts and subtlety characterize his work and the blurred image enabled by the camera lens creates new but familiar understandings of form and the relationship between people and place.

"Although I work within a long tradition of landscape painting, my depiction of the ‘seen’ landscape is simply a vehicle through which I navigate territory of another nature. A landscape less ordinary; where the line between the physical and the spiritual realm has seemingly been removed. However, these scenarios are not intended to be of a surreal nature. Hopefully they will seem curiously familiar and convincingly real.

"The figures in the landscape serve as carriers and reflectors of the light that falls upon them. Bathed in the luminosity, it is my hope that they would become more beautiful. To me, light is the ultimate subject because it embodies the pinnacle of all reality."

He is fascinated with the common notion that everything is random when there can be no question that there is design in everything. His is a philosophy of harmony, where even in the grit and grime of a city there is immense beauty to be discovered. A beauty that lies between the imperceptible and the unknown.

Born 1968 in Pietermaritzburg, Barlow graduated in 1990 from the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth with a Diploma of Graphic Fine Art (Printing, Stained Glass and Photography). He has shown in numerous exhibitions locally, as well as in the USA and in Greece.

Barlow currently lives in Riebeek Kasteel in the Western Cape.

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2021      
slowing a split second, Everard Read, London, UK

2019      
between broadway & 42nd, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2018      
Still Motion II, Everard Read, London, UK

2017      
Still Motion, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2015      
The Anatomy of Colour, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2013      
The colour of light, Johans Borman Fine Art, Cape Town, South Africa

2010      
Light Train, Obert Contemporary, Johannesburg, South Africa

2008      
Obert Contemporary, Johannesburg, South Africa
Johans Borman Fine Art, Cape Town, South Africa

2006      
De Light, Obert Contemporary, Johannesburg, South Africa

2005      
Solo exhibition at the Association of Visual Arts, Cape Town, South Africa

2004      
Glow, Obert Contemporary, Johannesburg, South Africa

2003      
This Thing of Light, Association of Visual Arts, Cape Town, South Africa

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2019      
Winter, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2017      
Reality Check, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
Solo studios, The Gallery, Riebeek Kasteel, South Africa
Winter, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2016      
Summer in the City, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
Solo studios, The Gallery, Riebeek Kasteel, South Africa

2014      
Summer Salon, Rarity Gallery, Mykonos, Greece

2013      
Allusions of Abstraction, Johans Borman Fine Art, Cape Town, South Africa

2011      
Persona, Johans Borman Fine Art, Cape Town, South Africa
Hespe Gallery, San Francisco, USA
The Homestead Charity Art Auction, Johans Borman Fine Art, Cape Town, South Africa
Boréal Publishers print a second ‘compact’ version of the Dany Laferrière novel, L`Enigme du Retour.

2009      
Art That Inspires - 10-20 Anniversary, Johans Borman Fine Art, Cape Town, South Africa
Hespe Gallery, San Francisco, USA

2004      
Identity,  Fortis Circustheater, Scheveningen, the Netherlands

COLLECTIONS

Bowman Gilfillan, Johannesburg
Nandos, London