© 2009, 2013 David Barnett
Guantanamo occupied Barnett off and on for over two years, becoming in the process, as had much of the Studio Series, a meditation on the role of the artist in times of war.
000The Postcard is real, and depicts US sailors tending babies at an orphanage run by the Navy at Guantanamo Bay circa 1908. The caption reads,"U.S. Naval Orphan Asylum, Guantamano (sic) Naval Station, Cuba".
000It was published by H.H. Stratton, Chatanooga, Tenn.
Studio—with a Figure on the Roof, 2005,
oil on canvas, 55 x 45 ins.
THE STUDIO SERIES
000In these paintings Barnett explored the inherent energy of chaos and the vitality it brings to the process of creation. Structuring his works on imagery suggested by the artist's studio with its past work, discarded ideas and inherent instability, he found he had a freedom of allusion previously unavailable to him.
000Barnett says, “It is only the state of chaos that contains all possibilities. Never the state of order. And order always longs for the creative abundance of chaos where, in the embrace of disorder, it finds the fullness of life.”
Studio—with a copy of Titian's
the Flaying of Marsayas,2002,
oil on canvas, 66 x 45 ins.
Studio—Nineteen Thirty-Three,
2004, oil on canvas, 66 x 46 ins.
Studio—with a Postcard from Guantanamo and a Palette
2006 – 2008, oil on canvas, 66 x 46 ins.
Studio—after a Summer Storm, 2005,
oil on canvas, 55 x45 ins.
Studio—with Giotto's Angel, 2003,
oil on canvas, 44 x 36 ins.
Studio—with a Putto, 2002,
oil on canvas, 66 x 45 ins.
