Translation 55. Painting

Barry G. Masteller is an American abstract painter and photographer. His oil paintings are notable for their meticulous use of color and texture, often incorporating a substrate of cut canvas collage and other elements. His imagery ranges from landscape to non-objective abstract; utilizing layers of tonal glazes and underpainting. Masteller was born April 21, 1945 in Los Angeles California growing up in the Silver Lake district. His paintings are in the public collections of The Palace of The Legion of Honor, Achenbach Collection. San Jose Museum of Art, Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, The Palm Springs Museum of Art, Crocker Art Museum, the Triton Museum of Art and the Monterey Museum of Art. He began painting as a teen and is mostly self-taught. During the 1960s his work was figure based and focused on portraits and abstracted landscapes. During the 1970s he moved toward a more surreal style in the manner of Rene Magritte and the Italian abstract artist Alberto Burri who influenced his use of cut and found fabrics often hand stitched to the canvas surface. In the 1980s he incorporated elements of architecture - pillars, cracked walls, arches and for a brief period illusionism. During the 1990s he returned to abstraction in a continuing series titled “Natural Occurrence” which began as impressions of the movement of water as seen in the reflections of sun and sky on the bay in Monterey California. Masteller has had a deep interest in photography, especially after locating to the Monterey Peninsula from Los Angeles in 1970. His photographs are centered around landscape and the figure, often reworked in post production into abstractions that have an otherworldly look. He said this about his photo work: “As a painter - when I pick up a camera it becomes a drawing tool. Night photography has so many things about it that fit my aesthetic - a way to truly capture light and movement. Since the light is limited at that time of day and I'm using a hand held camera I can't expect to get a “picture.” What I get instead is an image of long exposure red, white, yellow and green light line tracings; from street lights, signals, car and porch lights - the reseeding and approaching sunlight for it's beautiful blues and violets and any other accidental light source that finds it's way onto the sensor of my camera”.