And so it goes...

Mitchel Barrett
 
The Surreal and Visionary art of Mitchel Barrett has been exhibited worldwide. He has sold to established art collectors in England, France, Austria, Germany, Japan, Thailand, USA and Canada. Including recent interest from new art collectors in the media and fashion industry.
 
Born in England in 1960.
 
Worked as an International Fashion model from the mid 1980's to mid 90's.
 
Studied Screenwriting and Film Directing at Bournemouth and Poole College of Art and Design, UK and at the Hochschule fur Film in Munich, Germany.
 
From 2002 to 2004 studied with Prof. Ernst Fuchs in Austria and in the South of France, were he learnt the 'Mische' technique of painting, using egg tempera and oil glazes and also assisted Prof.Ernst Fuchs on his mammoth mural project in Klagenfurt, Austria.
 
Exhibitions include first solo exhibition of his paintings in Kyoto, Japan. Then numerous exhibitions, including Bangkok, Thailand; Vienna and Barockschloss Riergersburg, Austria; Cork Street, Notting Hill, the Mall Galleries and Brick Lane, London; New York and Miami, USA; H.R. Giger's Museum in Gruyeres, Switzerland and recently Saint Paul de Vence, France.
 
"Barrett emphasizes the contrast of light and dark, his figures are part of an elaborate, eclectic setting which contains a mixture of precise linear passages and painterly suggestive ones.
 
The lengthy and painstaking creative process of his work, illustrates Barrett's belief that the artist should always aspire to balance inspiration and intellect, imagination and revelation.
 
In his exploration of the mythological idea of man's union with the divine, his figures are enhanced with symbols of sexual potency and eternal power from Occidental, Oriental and occult traditions.
 
In brief, through his neo-Platonic visual exploration, Barrett is seeking comprehensive answers to the essential dilemmas of life."
 
Dr. Thierry Morel (Lecturer in Art History at Oxford University) March 2008
 
Management: Alain Ferat,
www.alisfineart.com
New York  (1) 212 465 3173
Paris        33 (0) 950 731 341

As an artist I respond to everything around me which opens a door to an inner world, where past, present and future intertwine, where the soul is revealed.

To quote from Joseph Campbell,
 
"The role of the artist I now understand, as that of revealing through the world-surfaces the implicit forms of the soul...."
Joseph Campbell

"Images flowed through me, a language that wished to be interpreted and reflected upon in a meaningful way. My consciousness was being raised, expanded and deepened from past experiences as symbolic and archetypal images that were evolving from my sketchbook onto the canvas. It was as if as an artist I was a channel for mysterious, hidden messages from a Collective unconscious.

But it was not without a struggle, as two different worlds were caught in conflict, in our world of duality, wanting to be different, separate, but also wanting to belong. There was the ego of the artist, a (clown-like) decorative mask that we all tend to wear and its desire for recognition, hiding a child-like inquisitiveness. The child in me wanted to be released into a personal landscape, curious, and devoted as a pilgrim on a quest to reaching the source of the True Creation.
 
I strive to remember as if recalling a dream, as these images emerged onto the canvas. Then I was reminded that we are all connected after looking behind the mask, that we are all in some way in this domain of the Collective Imagination.
 
Between visions of the artist and the interpretations of an onlooker, stories unravel and 'myths' are told in an ongoing journey to expand horizons of consciousness. The Visionary artist's motivation is to produce a spiritual awakening in the observer. Art then arises as a portal to the Spiritual and Divine, embracing both the Light and the Shadow.
www.mitchbarrett.com

....More interesting

Mitchel Barrett is currently working on a book called 'the Dreams of Frankie Cameron' which includes his artwork that is part of the story.
 
It is a rich blend of myth and dark fantasy. A modern story, adapted from different sources, including the myth of Orpheus, Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’, ‘The Fool’s Journey’ in the Tarot cards and a collection of subliminal messages from his Symbolic paintings, seamlessly interwoven into this Faustian narrative. 

Frankie Cameron is an English artist living in Paris. He is moderately well known, but still having not achieved the recognition he desired.

With an upcoming exhibition and lacking any inspiration, pressure is soon put on him by his art dealer. She soon reminds him that his reputation is at stake, since he hasn’t produced any new and different paintings for quite a long time and there are plenty of new and younger artists ready to take his place in the Gallery.

Frankie, desperate for an alternative source of inspiration, asks his girlfriend Tsuki, a Japanese-French fashion model on an assignment in the Amazon, to look for the indigenous ‘vine of the soul’. She returns to Paris with the seeds of the plant and after experiencing their hallucinogenic effect, he then takes it further. He mixes the crushed seeds in with an old white powdered pigment that he had used during painting and produces a drug which enables his dreams to come into reality as paintings.........

In April 1997 after he had just completed an exhibition of his paintings with two renowned Thai artists, he created a film called 'The mask'. It was fundamentally done as a visual experiment and adapted from the screenplay which he had originally written for 'The Dreams of Frankie Cameron'.

 
'The mask' is a hybrid allegory about the illusions with which we all proudly disguise ourselves. The story is centered on the artist, who enters the scene for a Tarot card reading........'

It is now being shown on www.youtube.com and can be found in search 'the mask by mitch barrett'.
 
 
In 2008 he had the rewarding opportunity during rehearsals to sketch the dancers of Mathew Bourne's Dorian Gray. A modern dance-theatre production adapted from Oscar Wilde's 'Picture of Dorian Gray'. Mitchel Barrett is also working on a series of paintings from this theme which will be exhibited this year.