Pontone Gallery featured the artist Kyle Barnes.
Kyle Barnes paints portraits busts of woman whose head and shoulders have been coated in a creamy, liquid, as if dipped into oil. The resultant glistening carapace is a protective second skin that is both transformative and revealing. It defines and enhances the characteristics of the person it encloses.
Barnes' startling paintings are demonstrations of technical accomplishments and subtle response to skin, surface and texture. His forensic attention to detail and a meticulous concern for representation, actuality are marshalled to make compositions of ethereal, suspended beauty, something the artist identifies as an essential component of his practise.
Some paintings have the subject in a cowl of white fluidity, others in an iridescent black that is reminiscent of crude oil. These different treatments allow a variety of interpretations.
We are invited to discover a range of dramatic roles and moods, some serene and others more tempestuous and possibly vengeful.
