BIOGRAPHY

Exhibiting a natural aptitude for art from a very young age, Australian artist Barney Gleeson’s fascination with drawing deepened in his late teens when he discovered Caravaggio's work. Captivated by the artist's masterful use of chiaroscuro, Barney found a new appreciation for how light and shadow could evoke emotion and drama.

 

With life drawing classes as his entry point, he discovered a talent for capturing the human form, which is the subject he still depicts today, albeit now from a more adult point of view.

 

Although his style has evolved over the years, the humble pencil and paper have remained his medium of choice. "There's something exquisite about working with graphite. Creating such subtle variations in depth and texture enriches my images," says Barney.

 

Barney's method of putting pencil to paper may seem simple. Still, it belies the detailed beauty of each finished work, transforming such humble materials to create his romantic view of the erotic.

​

Barney takes the immediacy and harshness of the contemporary phone camera selfie nude to an altogether more idealistic place in his works on paper. He softly redefines each image in layers of hand-drawn pencil, rendered in shades of grey. 

 

Each depiction of sexuality, fetish, intimacy, and vulnerability draws visual inspiration from Classicism and Renaissance traditions yet repositions these traditional classical norms via a homo-erotic gaze and queer viewpoint. Subjects are at once confident and coy, sexy yet secretive; as much as they are laid bare, their mystery and anonymity remain.