JOSEPH BARBIERI: FLOCKS OF FOWLS AND SUNNY LANDSCAPES
April 7 – 29, 2023 at Gallery NAGA
Spring comes just in time to welcome the arrival of a rabble of new paintings by Joseph Barbieri.
Joseph Barbieri: Flocks of Fowls and Sunny Landscapes will open to the public on Friday, April 7 with a reception for the artist and public from 5 to 7 pm. In addition, the artist will be present at the gallery to chat with visitors on Saturday, April 15 and 29 from 1 to 3 pm.
Joseph Barbieri paints both gentle landscapes and colorful animal portraiture, shown side-by-side. His animals consist of the feathered and beaked variety, often posed in human-like settings taking part in activities most often associated with the leisure class.
My current interest in bird-like images continues. I call them ducks, although many of them don’t look like ducks. There are several paintings where the ducks look like large wading birds usually standing in the water. Other ducks are flying, sometimes as pilots of airplanes. The ducks are usually clothed, though not always, and very bright oil colors with crisp edges are the norm. The deeper meaning of the paintings might be found in the imagination of the viewer.
An entirely different kind of work are landscapes, mostly done on an island in Maine, and on other islands much further south, i.e. Antigua and the Bahamas, and also from trips to Italy, where Pienza in Tuscany has been a favorite subject. I find the landscapes a nice change from being in the studio doing intensely detailed work, to being outside and painting in a freer way.
Some may find this dichotomy between styles puzzling, but I don’t at all, having done this during my student days at The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Art and later when I lived in Florence for a year.
Images of both artists’ work can be found at gallerynaga.com.
