elizabeth barlow I grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah, in a home surrounded by art-filled flower fields. Her father was the late artist Philip Barlow, and after a detour into the performing arts, she followed his inspiration and returned to painting. Barlow earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Utah, a master’s degree from the University of Virginia, and then continued her art education at the University of California, Berkeley Extension, where she earned a post-baccalaureate certificate with honors in visual arts. A contemporary still life painter, Barlow uses a meticulously layered oil painting process to create works of lightness and depth. After moving to the Monterey Peninsula in 2016, she found inspiration in natural landscapes and began her current series. Flora portraitsees flowers as symbols of vitality, fragility, and re-emergence. Elizabeth Barlow is represented by Andra Norris Gallery. Her work is included in the collections of the Monterey Museum of Art, the San Francisco Opera, and Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford University, among others.
Your paintings transform flowers into portraits. When did you first start seeing plants as individual “beings” with their own personalities?
Thank you for your question. No one has ever asked me that before, and it’s an important aspect of my job.
Seeing the inner spirit of the flowers I paint (and encounter on my daily walks) is deeply connected to my meditation practice. Every day, when I sit quietly, I practice the art of awareness and presence, which is very difficult to do in an increasingly “noisy” world. I found that the more I practiced stillness, the more deeply I was able to see and feel the amazing creatures around me (including flowers, of course).
Also, I am a slow painter by practice and intention, but this opened my eyes to the inner world of floral subjects. When I take the time to carefully look at flowers and draw a picture, I wake up from the deep sleep of busyness and see the beauty of this flower, this sunlight, this wind, this sky, this present moment.
What is your personal relationship with gardening and how does that experience inform your practice at Carmel’s studio?
As the child of a mother who was a talented gardener, I grew up in a house surrounded by flower gardens and took it for granted that the garden was as much a part of “home” as the house itself.
However, most of my adult life was spent enjoying the bustling city life of San Francisco rather than being in nature. When I moved to a seaside village, I suddenly realized that I had a garden and became a gardener. It was a typical cottage garden, with 25 roses filling the front lot, enriching its beauty and fragrance. Every morning, when I open the shades on my kitchen window, the first thing I see are roses. Late in the morning I walk into town towards my studio, passing all the other cottage gardens in the village. By choosing to look at flowers and gardens every day, I started to point my inner compass straight towards beauty. The more beauty I try to see, the more beauty I see around me.
Your artwork magnifies delicate natural forms to a confrontational scale. How do you think this scale changes our emotional or ethical view of the natural world?
By exaggerating the scale of the flowers, the viewer and I are asked to stop, slow down, and look deeper. of The flowers in my paintings are messengers, their beauty a seduction that reminds us of the power of stillness, the strength in seeming fragility, hope, faith, grace, and transformation.
Can you tell us about the origins of this body of work? Was there a particular observation or moment that led you to this surreal approach to flowers?
Two things happened in 2017 that changed the course of my life and art. First, we moved from San Francisco to Carmel-by-the-Sea. In cities, I was inspired by the vibrancy of urban life, and my work reflected that charm and energy. But in this seaside village, I was suddenly immersed in a world of sea mist, winding cypress trees, and year-round flowers blooming in cottage gardens.
At the same time, I was commissioned to create a painting by a prominent art collector and patron of the arts who lost his home in the 2017 Wine Country fires. The fire destroyed everything on the property except for the vines and one rose bush. Then something miraculous happened. In spring, the single rose bush began to bloom beautifully. The homeowner decided to build a new home on the same lot and asked me to paint a 6-foot tall painting of the rose bush for the home. we gave the picture a title phoenix rose Because it literally rises from the ashes and is a powerful symbol of hope, resilience, and rebirth.
I now dedicate my time and energy to painting larger-than-life flowers and communicating their messages to the world. The beauty of flowers is just a seduction, inviting us to an inner awakening. By simply stopping and looking, we can wake up from the slumber of busyness and wake up to the miracle of the present moment. That moment really exists.
From sketches to multiple glazing stages to extensive photographic references, your process is very layered and planned. What does slowness mean when it comes to seeing, especially in a world defined by speed and image saturation?
I’m a very slow painter. Each painting takes 3-8 weeks to complete, depending on the size of the canvas. That’s the actual painting time. I spend a year working on my paintings “behind the scenes.” I collect flowers in season, take photos in the early morning light, play with compositions, change my mood, and start again.
Since I paint with many layers of oil paint, I necessarily paint slowly, but more importantly, I choose to paint slowly. Slowly dedicating myself to painting supports and stabilizes me. This is great in an increasingly busy and fast-paced world.
Painting slowly is one of the ways I maintain mindfulness throughout the day. I wake up early and start my day with a cup of coffee and some quiet meditation time. The tone of my day is determined by this quiet time. My slow painting practice is another way to fully focus on the present moment while working. When I witness beauty unfolding on my canvas and in the world around me, I don’t want to rush.
What piece of art has inspired you recently?
I am inspired every day by the art I come across and the books I read. I just finished reading Pico Ayer’s wonderfully written book. go up in flamesThe book tells of the 35 years he spent at New Camaldoli Monastery in Big Sur recovering himself in silence. and my friend david riggerA great California painter exhibits his early works.sand” Paintings and drawings. To create them, he made abstract drawings in the sand of the beach below his home in Big Sur. After photographing the drawings in the sand, he recreated them as drawings and paintings in his studio. The works are at once abstract and strikingly realistic, and you can see the respect with which he creates each grain of sand.
Source: Our Culture – ourculturemag.com
