ca Gallery is delighted to present ‘She is woven into the Mystery’, the latest solo exhibition by Kym Barrett. Through richly nuanced surfaces and an intentional obscurity, Kym Barrett’s recent paintings ask questions about the Mystery of being human. She investigates the meaning of the evolving organic feminine forms as they become woven into landscapes or claim their own personal space.

EXHIBITION STATEMENT

When I start a painting, I don’t know what the outcome will be. I aim for qualities that I want the work to embody, like depth, a richly nuanced surface, and an intentional obscurity. My painting process is intuitive. Surfaces are built up and carved into, veiled and unveiled, until it feels right. It’s always a dance between structure and freedom.
For a long time, what emerged was an abstracted landscape, something reminiscent of place.

Lately, a figurative element has appeared.
What is this? Where did it come from? Why is it showing up now?
The answers are as mysterious as the process of making.

Was it a tip-off about my imminent breast cancer diagnosis and the need for healing? Is it a clue about being more present in the body? A reminder that the body is a vessel for Spirit? Or is it because I’m again drawing from a life model? Or … all of the above. I don’t know. I’m still curious.

I’m trying to make sense of the evolving organic feminine forms as they become entwined into landscapes or claim their own personal space.

I like to ask big Life questions too.
What is consciousness? What does it mean to be human? What is the purpose of suffering?
For me, these are mysteries, not problems.
My very Self and everyone’s Self is intimately woven into the Mystery of Being. And Mystery is ultimately undefinable. It’s always the Big Unknown. I’m learning to be comfortable with this uncertainty, and with the elusiveness of the painting process too.
What comes to light in my work is my shadowy story, and when I’m telling my story, I’m telling everyone’s story.
Make of it what you will.
I’m inviting you to pause and ask your own big questions.
Or be moved by something mysterious, or the scrumptious surface or simply the aesthetics of a piece.

Rumi (13th century Sufi mystic) said, ‘You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the mighty ocean in a drop.’

KYM BARRETT

Kym Barrett has lived and worked in Chatsworth, SE Queensland for over 45 years. She graduated in Fine Arts (painting and drawing) from the Brisbane College of Art (now QCA) in 1975 and has held twenty-two solo exhibitions.
Kym was the 2022 Bundaberg Art Prize winner, the 2021 Flying Arts Queensland Regional Arts Award winner and has won many other Queensland Art Awards.
She has been a finalist in twenty Queensland prizes and a finalist in five national awards since 2015. Her work is in the Bundaberg Regional Art Gallery Landscape Collection, Greenslopes Private Hospital, Sunshine Coast Regional Council Art Collection and Moreton Bay Regional Council Art Collection as well as in numerous private collections.
Kym currently creates abstract paintings that are process driven and which, whilst exhibiting rich luminosity and depth are intentionally open-ended, describing something out of reach but also the artist’s journey to a deeper ground.

Please email Erin [email protected] for all enqiries. An online catalogue will be available for preview in the coming weeks.