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Artist Statement
My visual vocabulary expresses symbolically our relationship to children using historical and contemporary references. Much of what my work is about is the intrinsic nature of mankind and our evolution of consciousness, especially our view of children. My intention in my creative process is to catch attention by creating a visual dialog that the viewer can intimately identify with, and the challenge for me as an artist is to go beyond the internal barriers that separate us from each other. In order to achieve this, my installations include antique optical eye lenses. The circle fascinates me, both as a symbol of self, wholeness and totality and as a power for the way the world works. Nature moves in circles. The seasons form a great circle and yet always return year after year, season after season. Small droplets form rain; circles that fall from the sky to the earth, only to be recycled through nature’s processes and again fall as rain from the sky. A never-ending cycle, a never-ending process. When the lenses are installed, the cast shadows are intended to act as a reminder that: how we see the world informs our world, creates our world and builds our future. Depending on how the light hits the lenses – determines the cast shadow. If the light or the angle of the lens change - so too does the shadow. I often paint on antique piano rolls. They reference the use of ancient scrolls and at the same time musical scales which are based on the Fibonacci Series. The ancients understood that all things are related to each other by number. Not just number as a quantity, quality or symbol, but also a number in space which is geometry, number in time which is music, and number in space-time which is astronomy-astrology. The ancients understood vibration (Sound - chants, music), they understood geometry (i.e. Circular housing - temples - shape and form) and space-time (Pyramids in relation the heavens) and they used these structures with the knowledge that we would feel, resonate and absorb unconsciously or consciously UNITY without words. My challenge as an artist has been to make art that is aesthetically beautiful and yet socially meaningful; my challenge as an activist has been to make a positive difference for children. Black Elk, an Oglala Sioux holy man once said: "The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves."
Deborah Barr - 2010
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