The art of Minimalism in writing an artist statement
Churchill said: if you want me to speak in front of the house for 3 hours I am ready but, if I need to speak for 5 minutes I have to be prepared. It took me a month to write this artist statement. Only after completing it, I understood that it is much easier to write a long article or a novel where I can write whatever I want. In the case of an artist statement every letter counts. The most difficult was to stay tuned to the essence of who I am and what my art is all about, from a 6 pages statement I curved 217 words, it is a never-ending process, I am sure I can tighten it more. The process of writing this statement was and is essential for me to clarify and crystalize my art and life journey.
Here it is and it might be that in the next edition it will change:
Artist statement — Ted Barr
First came the awe about the starry nights then the words to describe my inspiration. I started writing in my twenties, it took more than 15 years for colors and shapes to join and be part of my self-expression. In my FLY book, I wrote about our place as sparkling entities within the vastness of a dark universe. when I started to paint, stars and galaxies landed on my canvases. Then I was exposed to Lennart Nilsson’s inner body photography and, I was amazed about the similarity between stars and ovum, comets and sperms, embryos, and galaxies, so, on big canvases, I created my version of the beginning of human life. From those two series, ‘Deep Space’ and ‘Human Formation’, emerged my current body of works ‘Cycles of Life’, In my belief life and death are on the same bar of existence and there is no ‘out there’.
My method is called Free the Life within You, FLY is about the freedom to dare, cross the lines, be spontaneous, to mix oil and acrylic with cold tar in an unpredictable process and to embrace the unexpected results. Since 2009 I am teaching the FLY workshops all over the globe. I believe that making and teaching art is my part of a collective effort to enlighten our world.
