London-based artist Paul Barlow is known for his paintings that evoke the sense of peering through a microscope. Constructed with numerous layers and subtractive dilutions, Barlow's works recall the aesthetics of scientific imagery.
Read MoreBarlow gained his BA in Fine Art at Sheffield Hallam University in 2013, and received his Postgraduate Diploma in Fine Art from London's Royal Academy Schools in 2021.
Barlow often employs interpretations of his surroundings or discoveries of scientific phenomena in his paintings. Building up his canvases with multiple layers, the artist incorporates experimental processes to leave the final image partially to chance.
Barlow's paintings are constructed through a repetitive, multi-stage process that involves using brushes soaked with water to manipulate and strip paint away from the canvas. Considering the absorbent materiality of the canvas, Barlow allows the watered-down paint to bleed radially into the raw, unprimed substrate. This results in a matte finish that intensifies flat expanses of colour as seen in the golden yellow of boovaboovaboova (2021) or the pale cyan of Problem Solving: Mystery 2 (2021).
On his gestural process, Barlow has said that some of his gestures 'could be something like what a car washing machine might do, a never-ending rubbing against the surface, rolling around a surface, an endless spin, wash, clean and repeat.'
For his 2022 solo exhibition 00:00:00 at London's South Parade, Barlow presented a suite of largely monochromatic paintings that recall ambiguous forms observed in molecular biology or geography. The title 00:00:00 may allude to the beginning of an action or event, or a reset—a timestamp that brackets a period of potential.
The works that make up 00:00:00 suggest a deep observation of specimens and patterns at a microscopic level or a translation of sonic or tactile stimuli into abstracted visual renderings. dumdum (2021) comprises two main compositional features: on the left is a number of irregularly spaced arched lines, evocative of the Doppler effect, and on the right is a horizontal mushroom-like form with bleeding edges.
In dumdumdumdummydoowah (2022), a purple amoeba-like form occupies the centre of the canvas, its edges seeping outward into the darkened background. In this sense, Barlow's exhibition is a minefield of Rorschach tests, in which the viewer may project their own interpretations of form and space onto the work.
In 2019, Barlow was an artist-in-residence at the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation in Connecticut.
Barlow has presented his work in solo and group exhibitions internationally.
Select solo exhibitions include Karsten Schubert, London (2022); 00:00:00, South Parade, London (2022); RA Schools Degree Show, Royal Academy of Arts, London (2021); Surface Dressing, Slugtown, Newcastle (2017).
Select group exhibitions include New Beginnings, Blindspot Gallery, Hong Kong (2022); Tomorrow, White Cube, London (2021); Show Off (Open Rehearsal), Cooke Latham Gallery, London (2020); Standstill, Kubik Gallery, Portugal (2019).
Paul Barlow's website can be found here, and his Instagram can be found here.
Misong Kim | Ocula | 2022
