Laurence Barbera

Artist Statement

Laurence Barbera is a figurative artist based in Long Beach, California.

ARTIST STATEMENT

When in elementary school, a teacher once quipped, “you’re not an artist, are you” and even though I loved drawing and painting, those words discouraged me, and I never really tried becoming better after that. I would look at the artwork of other students with envy, all the while “you’re not an artist” … “you’re not an artist” echoed in my brain.

After spending more than 30 years working in the film industry, I found myself searching for a new creative outlet. After being exposed to the works of Lucian Freud, Egon Schiele, and Alyssa Monks, to name just a few, this search rekindled my desire to become an artist and drew me into the fascinating world of painting the human figure.

Even though largely self-taught, painting has given me a new and unique voice. Oil paints can make many different styles that transcend all other art forms, more than any other medium I know. I paint with brushes or palette knives in oil paint using vivid, contemporary colors to capture a model’s many abstract angles, shadows, and textures. I paint mainly nude figures studies that can be large and uncompromising or small and delicate. My figures sometimes have a quiet, straight-forward pose that may make some viewers glance away, while others find themselves drawn even closer into the painting’s orbit.

“Man’s naked form…belongs to no particular moment in history; it is eternal and can be looked upon with joy by the people of all ages”– Auguste Rodin

https://www.laurencebarbera.com

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