Peter Barrett
Peter Barrett is an artist who seeks to break free from the strictures of traditional, rectangular, two-dimensional painting by creating shaped panels, reliefs, painted objects, and large scale architectural installations in which abstract imagery bursts forth into space. He calls this approach “pushing painting into a 2.5 dimensional space.” In this place between dimensions, Barrett extends the formal vocabularies of late twentieth-century Minimalism and Op (optical) Art by multiplying and layering simple shapes, and by subtly manipulating visual perception. The resulting images simultaneously reference sacred geometries (the mandala, the rose window, the lotus blossom) and the look of scientific models and diagrams. The symbolic systems of the rational and mystical worlds radiantly co-exist here, and suggest that science and myth – both expressions of the human mind – unsurprisingly converge. Barrett’s paintings also link galactic and atomic phenomena (like both Hindu philosophy and quantum mechanics), and suggest energies both physical and spiritual. The title of this installation (created especially for Big Bang!) is Red Shift, and refers to an electromagnetic phenomenon that serves as a foundation of the Big Bang theory of cosmology.
Peter Barrett resides in Woodstock, NY
Image: Peter Barrett, M-Brane II , 2006, oil on wood, latex on wall, 15 ’ x 15 ’, installation at Supreme Trading, Brooklyn, NY, Lent by the Artist
