Barbara Neulinger

“Painting is swinging a sledgehammer while walking a tightrope. I’m going for looseness and fluidity while navigating nuanced layers and brushstrokes. The newer paintings evoke a presence – the observer / painter coming upon a pool of water in a garden or forest, in a state of suspension, as if sleepwalking. These pools regard water as an element to get lost in. Water absorbs and reflects, while revealing glimpses, and hiding multitudes. In the paintings there are shadow and reflection shapes, colors of sky and sunset, and in most, an edge – a hint of containment. As I work the paintings, the shapes and layers shift, until surface and shadow still and abide and the energy of it all knocks against the edges just enough. I’m interested in the pool as a subjective inner space, revealing a transient state of mind and heart, arrived at only through painting.”

- Barbara Neulinger artist statement