Narrative permeates Barbara's paintings. Yet her landscapes, and the figures that appear in them, evoke something neither real nor imagined; more a world half-remembered.
Barbara paints in the morning, when the world is still quiet and dreams are still lurking. Most mornings she will go walking along the estuary with her sketchbook. Barbara lives in the coastal marshland of Essex where the sea and land merge in mud flats, tidal creeks, and flooded fields providing a continuous backdrop to fleeting moments.
"Back in the studio I aim to recreate the feeling and atmosphere of the landscape, the vastness of it. Then I wait for figures to appear in the painting, seemingly of their own accord, prompted by memory, imagination, or old photographs. I try to capture the transience and stillness of the present moment."
Painting mostly in acrylics, with additions of wax crayons, gouache and ink, Barbara relishes the textures of paint; wiping, scraping, and manipulating the surface is all part of her creative process. Her talent as a colourist is always to the fore.
Barbara was born in Newcastle and originally trained as an actor and spent many years touring with theatre companies. 'Sometimes I work as an actor,' she says, 'sometimes as a theatre director, but always as a painter.'