Artist - Kyle Barnes. Northern Irish born painter currently living in Southampton, England. Artist. Art. Portraits. Paint on Skin. After War. Veterans.
Northern Irish born Painter, Kyle Barnes is currently based in Southampton, England. Barnes has won the Towry prize at the National Open Art Competition and exhibited at the prestigious Pallant House Gallery in Chichester. He further won the ‘Young Artist Award’ and the ‘People’s Choice’ Award at the Royal Ulster Academy, Belfast 2014. In 2015 he was awarded the Tyrone Guthrie Residency & in 2017 he was awarded the Whyte's Award at the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin. His Work is included in many private and public collections.
"In many ways our face is a landscape. Years of experiences etch their mark on us physically as well as mentally, shaping who we are and moulding us as people. Our faces tell the story of how we live, our expression etched unto our face through the experiences we've had, the emotion in our eyes the result of the journey we've undertaken to bring us to the present.
Our skin is a timeline of our life style and choices. Through living life, we continually go through a process of cleansing and renewing from the dirt and grime that we pick up through 'life living' both physically and metaphorically. We experience, socialise, go to work, interact and from this activity we need to draw away, to help us make sense of our experiences, to help us grow and learn. It is the humanity of doing and drawing away, experiencing and learning, socialising and being alone, becoming physically dirty and cleansing that the work comments on. We are products of the people around us, our parents, the social experiences we have, the friendships, struggles and joys, the land itself. We're connected. These are connections which make us one and the same but yet unique as we grow and are shaped, pulled and pushed in many different ways to make us who we are at this present point in time."