Figuralescent

Paintings by Geoff Farnsworth. Drawings by Beverley Barber

February 27 – March 28, 2010

Opening Reception: Friday, February 26, 6 - 9pm

A Mano Libera Gallery
150 Ontario Street, St. Catharines, Ontario
www.amanoliberagallery.com

Open Sat-Sun, 1-5pm or by appointment

New paintings by Geoff Farnsworth will be showing alongside selected pieces from different stages, while living and painting in New York City, Toronto, Thunder Bay and Niagara Falls. This exhibition at A Mano Libera Gallery in St. Catharines will take place in conjunction with a show of new drawings by Beverley Barber. With a selection of 18 paintings, this collection highlights the more painterly and process-oriented works made by Geoff Farnsworth over the last decade. Most of the pieces contain exploratory figures embedded as much into mindscape as landscape. Two new paintings in the show feature a fry truck on Lundy’s Lane, in Niagara Falls, in different stages of destruction. The explosion-like forms emanating from the structures are composed of pure globs of paint, brush smears and palette knife work that expresses texture, colour and paint manipulation as much as denoting a blast or some force of nature. A painting titled Knight reveals a larger than life-sized coat of armour that is as much about the act of painting as issues of identity and power. The weight of the form and atmosphere vibrate together, both merging and separating, so that the knight becomes an object of mystical meditation. Geoff Farnsworth began his art training in Vancouver at Capilano College, The Federation of Canadian Artists and Emily Carr, before moving to New York City to train at the Art Students League from 1997 to 2002. He has been living and painting in Ontario since then, with the last 2 years in Niagara Falls. His paintings have been shown across Canada, in the United States and in Sweden, including New York City, Washington DC, Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and Stockholm.

Beverley Barber studied at the Dundas Valley School of Art and Sheridan College in Ontario, as well as attending workshops in California. She has traveled and painted in Mexico, Africa, Italy and California, as well as Ontario, Québec and British Columbia. Her work has been represented in galleries in Quebec, Nanaimo, St. Catharines and California. Beverley paints in watercolour, oil, and acrylic, and sculpts in clay and wax. She teaches in the Niagara region at Niagara College, The Pumphouse, and The Niagara Gallery.