ESSAY BY JESS MCNICOL

Kate is a Side Gallery veteran, and her work sits comfortably in the sun-dappled gallery of the Red Hill space.

A local artist, Barry’s works reflect her surroundings in distinct ways that aren’t immediate but feel familiar. My first impressions are of lush gardens, and refined and relaxed interiors. For this collection, Barry’s canvases follow no specific theme. Although each work embodies her signature layered abstraction, the unifying quality is that each was painted at some point this year.

It’s been a big year for Barry, and she explains that she has recently chosen a path at a crossroads. For an artist who paints so intuitively and with such physicality, I feel there’s an organic narrative at the core of each work that suggests this. Each one of the works in this collection is a snapshot of moments from the last twelve months. To Barry, they are time travellers, a record of emotion, expressions of a year in her life.

Curator Laura has worked in interesting ways with this theme, and the collection hangs in shades. This choice directly emphasises the connections between each work, yet also deliberately calls attention to the interesting comparisons they make.

The show’s title, 'Diversion', is explained by Barry as a transference of energy from her day-to-day life to the surface, and I like to think you can see this in the physicality of application in each work. 'Diversion' is a diary of immersive gestures, and Barry says that each of the work’s titles represents her experience at the time. Similar lines and shapes across several pieces indicate the strings of Barry’s life as she lives it.

Visible in 'The Promise', soft orange and pink confetti and dreamy whitewash ribbons are in motion across soft greens and nudes. It has a kind of energy that’s fizzy and sweet, and it stands out immediately. It causes me to search for similar expressions elsewhere to find a sort of evolution in similar strokes, to see Barry’s year unfold before me. Areas of blue, peaceful, form Barry’s baseline, and in 'Blue Flames', we see this in restful pools, but there are other works where it is expressed only as linework or found only in the darkest hues. It’s there as frenetic energy around a moment of peace in 'Sometimes Riot' or as a part of a loose, surreal daydream in 'Dropcloth'.

There’s work here, in 'Summer Swathe', 'Quietly' and 'Tangled Up', that seems dominated by blocky shape, and I enjoy theorising about what causes the artist to become so defiant and certain but, at other times, so soft. To me, this exemplifies Barry’s process as an expression of her ongoing conversation with her own life.

Barry’s painted layers reveal her experience, and that familiarity begins to resolve itself in her gestural freedom. The works in 'Diversion' express a time and place we are all familiar with — the tenderness and contemplation that make up the layers of our own day-to-day life.

About the Curator

Laura Brinin

Laura Brinin is a curator of contemporary art, currently facilitating the vibrant program at Side Gallery in the heart of Red Hill, Brisbane. With an unwavering passion for nurturing connections with emerging and established creatives, Laura is dedicated to fostering artistic growth through avenues such as social media, branding, and identity development.

Laura has exhibited her own work both in Australia and overseas, as well as working as an independent freelance curator across Brisbane for over ten years. In her downtime, you can find her reading, travelling, or stalking dogs.

—   laura@sidegallery.com.au