PAUL BARNES

NATURAL AFFINITY

COVER IMAGE

The Giant Cat | PAUL BARNES acrylic on wood panel | 20.5cm x 20.5cm

+44 (0) 1463 783 230

art@kilmorackgallery.co.uk

Kilmorack Gallery, Inverness-shire iv4 7al SCOTLAND

PAUL BARNES

NATURAL AFFINITY

WINTER 2024/25

A Flower for a Friend acrylic on board | 16cm x 18.5cm

I am just back from photographing a new batch of Paul Barnes’ paintings in the gallery. It’s very early in the morning and no one else is around. I feel the fizz of energy that comes after exploring secret places –those nooks and niche worlds opened by Paul Barnes’ work. None of his paintings are large, no bigger than a book, but like a book they have qualities that transport you elsewhere. They are like jewels. The surface of Paul Barnes painting is extremely fine grained, with details too minute for the eyes to see. This gives the impression that they were not human made but are an hallucinogenic apparition, something left by elves during the night, a connection to elsewhere. This is intentional. Barnes uses his fine craftsmanship and technique to create works that give the impression of timelessness, of being something found or discovered.

Paul Barnes was born in Inverness and grew up on Don and Deeside where, when still young, he found a thrill in the new and improved worlds that drawing and nature opened up. Eventually, this took him to art school in Aberdeen, where he excelled - afterwards gaining a small fan club of artists and the occasional celebrity purchase. Barnes’ work has always been deeply personal, so much so, that it puts it outside the mainstream, slightly outsider, and it is

all the better for this. He is one of the unique voices in the art world and one of the most meticulous.

Barnes’ love of the rich patterns and animism of tribal art and folk and fairy law is clear, which gives his work geographic freedom. The four headed, six-footed combined creature in family tree could be anywhere - Africa, Shinto Japan or the hills of Inverness-shire. Its/their patterned body extends into the landscape behind them and, overall, the feeling is one of strength, but it could also be a joke on personal freedom and individuality, with heads looking in all directions? How is it really, to live like this? These creatures have connections and attachments which they cannot break.

Other apparitions take Barnes’ work to what could be Egypt. The ‘Empress’ exudes power from her small atomic body. It is a theme he has visited before, and with her bird head, cat-like torso and many tendrilled tails, she is both familiar but new. She rekindles a childlike wonder at the strange things the world offers. Sometimes what we think we know, proves to be more, like a toy that comes to life at night.

There is a part of Barnes’ work that is full of love - A Flower for a Friend, Memory of you, indeed all his creatures exist without the human complications of greed and ego. They are pure. The fox and the bird reflect each other in their diptych. They might

be predator and prey, but they are part of a circular natural affinity. Barnes’ ‘Black Dog’ is an omen, and like his other creatures, it is wild. In the fairy tales and legends, you can be eaten as well as suckled by a wolf. This world which Barnes paints, is not far from our own, and in it, dark and light are one. Accepting this is a price you pay to enter.

It is a great honour to exhibit this collection of works in Kilmorack Gallery over the winter of 2024 and to celebrate these jewel-like works in a small publication that will keep them together and remembered, even when they are sold and scattered.

Tony Davidson, Director of Kilmorack Gallery

The Blue Hare acrylic on board | 15cm x 10cm