BARBARA BICKLE
Realism - the here and now
Realism - the here and now
8" x 10"
oil
Resides in Halifax
Classes at Toronto's Artist's Workshop introduced Barbara to still life and life drawing and to the inspiring instruction of Rowley Murphy, a retired naval and marine artist. These classes led to her attending Central Technical School of Art for three years, graduating as a graphic designer. Ten years later, a trip to Italy inspired her desire to expand her knowledge of painting and brought her to the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design to study painting, drawing and art history. She has painted and exhibited continuously since then.
Upon graduation from NSCAD she returned to Toronto to pursue a professional career as graphic designer and painter. Solo and group painting shows have been held at the Anna Leonowens Gallery and the Here and Now Gallery, the Society of Canadian Artists, the Metropolitan Toronto Convention & Visitors Association, the 36th Aviva Art Auction, the Arts & Letters Club of Toronto and the John B. Aird Gallery.
In 1995, she attended Sheridan College’s postgraduate program in Computer Graphics. On the graphics side that experience directed her towards web design; on the artistic side it led to further exploration and experimentation with narrative.
As a painter, a large part of her inspiration has come from a childhood spent on the beaches of Daytona Beach, Florida. The abstracting qualities of sky, sand, and ocean created a need to eliminate details. Hence the structures in her paintings -- oil rigs, grain elevator, silos, hydro towers, factories -- became solitary scenes stripped of the life around them; no cars or people are portrayed in order to create a calm, noiseless and static environment. The sensibility behind these paintings reveals the influence of Giorgio deChirco, Richard Diebenkorn, Philip Guston, Edward Hopper, and Giorgio Morandi. Emily Carr and Joyce Wieland have also been influential.
Lately Barbara’s work has reincorporated figure painting in an exploration of representative personal experience and the narrative qualities of gesture, situation and event. These paintings often wed text and image to convey conversations or shared thoughts and insights.
In 1999, Barbara returned to Halifax where she has begun a career as a web designer and artist through her company, barbarabickle.com. This “virtual” gallery is an exciting addition to the work she loves to do and a wonderful opportunity to share her connections to a wide range of friends and acquaintances.
Halifax, NS Canada
e-mail bbickle@ns.sympatico.ca