Temporary and fragile – Richard Barlow’s chalk drawings illuminate existential and environmental concerns in beautiful site-specific installations. Barlow’s wide-ranging work uses drawing, painting, and installation to investigate issues specific to the history and form of photography and its signification of documentary truth.
In a new work for Landskrona Foto, Barlow will create a wall drawing based on his time at the Arctic Circle residency: collaging multiple photographs of the receding pack ice, he first produces apparently seamless documentary images, and then uses them to produce an intricately detailed large-scale chalk drawing. The ephemeral nature of the chalk drawings maps onto the fragility of the natural world; the drawing, like the ice, is threatened by the presence of its viewers, and will eventually disappear.
Richard Barlow is a visual artist working across drawing, painting, photography, music, and installation. He holds an MFA from the University of Minnesota and a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. He is Assistant Professor of Art at Hartwick College in Oneonta, NY, USA.