* All images used with permission. Please do not distribute without first contacting the artist.
Elizabeth Barnes is a painter and educator living in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Her work centers around questions as to the nature of contemporary painting in its relationship to history, culture, technology, space, materiality, process and colour.
Elizabeth describes the work by saying, “I am interested in the act of painting and its ability to define the boundaries of the real within our constantly shifting perception of everything from meaning to space and time. I am also interested in the philosophical concept of materiality as a basis for aesthetic experience. My practice involves a system of first laying down masking tape to create a grid or pattern, and then applying paint to the exposed canvas. This process is repeated for many layers over an extended period of time, usually lasting approximately six months. Tape acts as foil, interceptor and mediator. Foil as a sub-plot to the main plot that is painting, interceptor in its function to intercept and control the flow of paint, and mediator in the painterly experience of intuitive response.”
