the colour of light is the title of the exhibition by Philip Barlow at Johans Borman Fine Art.
“Barlow describes his work as ‘a step towards abstraction’. His images are ‘not defined to the degree where all is given away. It is a step into a realm that is other, but at the same time, I take the viewer with me’. The elusive quality of the images lies, in part, in the melding of Realism and abstraction, inviting new ways of seeing. The play of light moves us from a seemingly ordinary moment of time, to a transcendent doubling of the meaning of ‘illumination’: at once to see with clarity and as a reflection of the artist’s deeply felt sense of the divine aspect of light. The softly diffused outlines in the paintings alert us to the illusion of ‘clear seeing’: When we ‘see’ the world around us, ‘[w]hat we get on the retina …is a welter of dancing light points… What we see is a stable world. It takes an effort of the imagination and a fairly complex apparatus to realize the tremendous gulf that exists between the two.’ It is this ‘effort of the imagination’ that is the realm of the artist. For Barlow, the relationship between the human eye and the photographer’s lens forms part of the ‘complex apparatus’ of his imaginative representations of ‘glimpses into a place in time’. The blurred focus enabled by the camera lens stimulates new understandings of forms, and relationships between people and place. The world of stability we create may often harden, imperceptibly, into alienation and lack of insight.
We are reminded, in Philip Barlow’s art, that we see through a glass darkly.”
The above is an extract from Introduction in the catalogue to the show by C.A. Michael
WHEN: 31 October till 23 November 2013
OPENING HOURS: Monday – Friday: 9:30 – 17:30; Saturday: 10:00 – 13:00
WHERE: Johans Borman Fine Art, 16 Kildare Road, Newlands, Cape Town, 7700 GPS Coordinates: 33°58‘41.20”S 18°27‘37.87”E
INFO: Tel (0027) (0)21 683 6863 Email art@johansborman.co.za
