The passion for the process of painting continues to drive my practice

Using the landscape and human body as the stimulus and starting point, I attempt to investigate the layering of time in order to create a visual memory.

To present these spaces as consecutive, I paint in layers that reveal and conceal each other. The layering starts from an image recalled from the past, each layer becoming "more present". The paintings are a recording of time, and divergent outcomes can be understood as a possible metaphor for memory.

The image is drawn from the inconsistency of memory and the limits of imagination. There is an endless possibility of outcomes until the image either emerges, or is destroyed. This engagement and response to what is happening on the canvas has the potential vitality and emotional charge that I want to evoke, in order for the viewer to fully engage and the work to stand on its own terms.

Hilary Barry. March 2007

Hilary Barry is a painter; she draws influence from the landscape and dance. The work is about the act of painting as much reflecting the subject in its essence. The paintings inspire in people a nostalgia, reminiscences, a feeling of de ja vu. Above all Hilary's practice is powerful yet subtle, dark and yet playful.

Hilary Barry lives and works in North London.