Oneonta Artist’s Work To Be Featured at the Gatehouse
MORRIS—On Friday, August 1 from 4-6 p.m., the Gatehouse Coffee Shop and Mercantile, 129 Main Street, will present “Welcome to the Open,” a solo exhibition of work by artist Richard Barlow. The event is free and open to the public. Guests are invited to enjoy complimentary wine and light snacks while meeting the artist and experiencing the work in person. The exhibition will be on view through the month of August.
At the heart of the show is “Net Worth,” a 22-by-30-inch iron oxide drawing that anchors Barlow’s ongoing critique of landscape imagery in consumer culture. Created using iron filings and water, the piece—like others in the series—is composed of rust stains, a haunting metaphor for industrial decay and environmental loss.
In “Welcome to the Open,” Barlow appropriates romantic, sublime landscapes lifted from sports utility vehicle advertisements—imagery that promises transcendence and freedom through consumption, while in reality fueling environmental degradation. “These eerily beautiful compositions ask us to reckon with how the natural world is manipulated to sell products that may ultimately destroy it,” organizers said.
“The implication, of course, is that these products will somehow bring you the experience of these spaces…yet their emissions also ensure the slow destruction of the beauty used to sell them,” Barlow explained.
Barlow holds a master of fine arts degree in painting and drawing from the University of Minnesota and a bachelor in fine arts from Rhode Island School of Design. He is a two-time recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in drawing and has participated in numerous international residencies, including The Arctic Circle Artist and Scientist Residency Program, NES Iceland, and Sail Britain. His work has been featured in solo exhibitions at the Bellevue Arts Museum, The Philbrook Museum of Art and Landskrona Foto.
Originally from Essex, England, Barlow now lives in Oneonta, where he teaches drawing and painting at Hartwick College.
