Patricia Barrow, Artist

I began to paint with oils in the 1990’s after I had been a professional photographer for 25 years. What I knew about light and composition – especially in my favored black & white images – was a great advantage in learning to be a painter in oils. But learning to be an artist in oils was altogether different.

In photography, you try to capture what you see before you. In oil painting, what you see may be only a memory. And sometimes it is only in your imagination. And you can never capture it, only evoke it.

I am lucky today that I paint everywhere from the sunny fields of Provence to my own tropical backyard, from the misty beaches of Carmel and Martha’s Vineyard to the imaginary world of my studio.

Everything inspires me. My dog, a vintage dress. The light across a valley, the moon through my window.

Because what I want to express in my paintings is not so much what I see, but how I see it. Just at that one moment. Just that way. And if I enable you to share that feeling of recognition and discovery when you see some of my work, than I have a painted one for you.