Adrienne and Barry
Moerewa

• Stone and Egg Painting

Barry has been dabbling in paint since the ’70s. Self-taught, with a feeling for the power of painted visual effects and the technical ability to achieve those effects, his early works were spacescapes on flat surfaces, and they sold.

Selling is often a confusing final negotiation in the life of an artwork. Not so for Barry. The work does not aspire to a high and revered museum status; this work is conceived and crafted with a clear and purposeful conscience, no artful strategies, and it has a price in the range of a pair of shoes. In a way this is knitting that can’t be worn; it is skillfully and laboriously produced and it is beautiful to behold.

The matter-of-fact production of this work is part of its charm. This is a family affair, both Barry and Adrienne produce this work and it has grown from a hobby to a cottage industry.

The stones are specially selected for their formal potential and a work is judged successful in terms of its visual dazzle and in terms of its ability to delude a viewer as to its real substance: ‘no, this is not a cushion.’