Cynthia Barlow-Marrs
Barlow-Marrs has had a lifelong interest in memory and thought, and the way we interpret our experiences over time. Her Papered Over series marked the beginning of a new direction for her art in 2020.
She had been looking for a way to combine her love of layers, grid structure, mark-making and patterns in a series of monochrome drawings. As she cast her eye around the studio for paper best suited to this project, Barlow-Marrs unearthed a stash of uncut A1 sheets of commercially printed lithographic reproductions of her own sketches; left-overs from the production of a small limited edition book of drawings she had made a decade earlier under the chandeliers of the historic Guildhall. The subjects had been the visitors and vendors of a monthly artist-and-artisan fair in the Guildhall. Thus began the artist’s habit of returning to the same location month after month, to draw for hours at a time.
In Papered Over No. 1, she covered the page with new layers of marks in ink and pencil so that all that would remain of the printed imagery would be an impression of something underneath. This took some time, and as the new drawing spread across the sketches underneath, she thought about the past and present, and the way things that have gone before influence what we do and think today.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS:
The Mall Galleries: 2021 and 2022 | The annual open exhibition of the Society of Graphic Fine Art – The Drawing Society 2021 | The ING Discerning Eye exhibitiony | Bankside Gallery | Barbican Library
EDUCATION:
BFA degree in painting and further degrees in environmental planning and design
Cynthia Barlow-Marrs lives and works in Windsor, UK.
“After a lifetime of moving from one place to another, I want to feel more connected to my surroundings, and drawing has been an important means of achieving this. I have drawn standing up in a crowded train to Naples, and closer to home I’ve sketched the car repairman brandishing cables as he jump-starts our car in the rain. I draw at lectures and concerts, in cars and on planes, in hospitals and living rooms. Depending on what I am drawing, the location-sketch experience can be like a meditation, an exercise in grounding as much as a record of time and place.”
Interview:
