Artist Bio:
Robert Barry has had a passion for photography since the late nineteen sixties when he purchased a camera to photograph his first-born daughter. He quickly found that solely making family images did not satisfy his creative photographic appetite. From these early days his interests and pursuits have mostly been in the photo treasure hunt. He loves to wander in and around cities investigating and capturing images about how we build and decorate our environments. Robert finds beauty in things mundane to the majestic.
“As a photographer I am concerned with Visual Perception. I am interested in investigating the connection between how things appear in real life and the changes that occur in translating the location into a photographic image. I try to capture the essence of a place and give it a power, an importance and hopefully create an emotional connection with the viewer. Within the camera’s frame and through the use of attributes like space, shape, scale, color, and viewpoint, I create relationships with the various components of the image. Photography is about the relationships of things. When you continually look at the world to find these relationships, your awareness of your environment increases. All of these considerations are puzzled together to form a cohesive unit where the subject is the whole, the sum of its parts.”
San Francisco State University is his alma mater. He received his Masters in Art in 1978. Robert is currently a Professor Emeritus of Photography at Palomar College in San Marcos, California. His teaching career started at Palomar in 1989.
His Photographs have been exhibited and collected internationally.
Artist Statement:
I am continually learning about visual perception. My goal is to incorporate my expanding view of the world and art into the tangible and hopefully enduring pieces that I create. Creation, in whatever form or activity, is a necessary element of my attempt at a balanced existence.
My approach to photography is straightforward. I photograph for the pleasure of seeing the world encapsulated in the frame. It is exciting to walk the streets of a city or other environment being hyper-aware of the uniqueness of a place. I respond to the visual, and emotional stimuli that I encounter. Puzzling pieces together from a three-dimensional world and forming photographs in two dimensions is a constant stimulation. I’m involved in recording the state of the urban landscape. My interest is influenced and shaped by multiple factors such as: art & architecture, culture, demographics, affluence, urban decay and redevelopment. The interaction of decoration, beautification, deterioration, and messaging continually fill my compositions with exciting imagery. In recent years the phenomena of the ever-changing Paint-Tag-Paint cycle, which appears on most city surfaces, has attracted my eye.
I spend a considerable amount of time ruminating over all the work I have gathered. Part of this is the judgement and editing cycle to choose what images move on and part is about the enigma of why some of the images don’t make the cut. I think I learn from this reflection. Once I determine the successes, the challenge is to shape the images into beautiful print presentations. My ultimate goal is to make effective compelling images that sing.
I am quite excited about sharing this body of work and hope that the viewers will share in this excitement.
CLICK ON IMAGE TO VIEW EACH GALLERY
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