Encapsulating aspects of drawing, painting, dance and performance, Kelly Barrie’s large-format photographs can be read on many levels. Barrie’s process evolves from the experience of existing images as imaginary sites where the past and present converge.
Starting with found photographs of objects that have been destroyed, and subsequently, lost to history, he performs his response to them by literally walking it out on the studio floor using toe drags, heel spins, snake walks and foot sweeps to manipulate photo-luminescent pigment on black paper. The drawing is then documented in several dozen 8” X 10” sections using a 35 mm camera utilizing natural daylight stored in the light-sensitive powder. The powder’s light is released by using the vertical blinds in the artist’s studio as a type of aperture. Over the course of several weeks, 70 or more photographs are taken using a grid system which later allows the artist to stitch the photos back together using computer software in order to complete a finished photograph. ‘Between the Blinds,’ refers to the series of photographs based on this process, which Barrie began in 2008.
