Mike Barlow
I work in acrylics, gouache, and graphite. My main concern is the making of abstract/symbolic work, using colour, design and, in the constructions, the intrinsic qualities of found material. The influence of landscape is there, and I have occasional forays into the figurative, but I prefer making non-representational work which stands up in its own right. This can involve the process leading me by the nose, drawing on my own internal sense of when something is working.
I particularly like and admire many of the St Ives modernists: Barnes Graham, Ben Nicholson, John Wells, Paul Feiler, Brian Wynter, and the more contemporary Matthew Lanyon.