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Hirst, Barry Aalto's Vase Watercolor with scraping out 8 3/4 X 12 3/4 inches

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Barry E. Hirst
1934

Hirst’s chosen medium is watercolor, applied to a thick, semi-absorbent paper, which is then often heavily worked, or abraded, to create a beautiful and lively surface energy. This process, which Hirst likens to “carving,” brings the artist to a closer awareness of the physical surface of the painting and contributes to a unified structure in much the same way that Cezanne’s careful, regular brushstrokes unify his canvases. Hirst began using watercolor in response to a demanding teaching schedule: “I needed to paint continuously in order to get through my ideas. Watercolor can fit into this kind of pattern without compromise. I have continued to use watercolor, it seems to fit the way in which I think.”

Primarily figurative, his work creates a complex interaction of form and color through a process of bold and meaningful simplification that traces its artistic decent from such diverse influences as Giotto, John Sell Cotman, Klee, Matisse, and Brancusi. “I think that every painting has two subjects: what it appears to depict, and secondly and, more importantly, the structure by which it has been made. The expression comes from the structure.…For over fifty years, painting has been integral to how I live, where I live, and who I am. The making of pictures is my central concern. Hopefully, they are independent of words.”

Hirst’s work is in museum, corporate, and private collections as diverse as those of Texas A & M University, the São Paulo Museum, Brazil, the Museum of Modern Art, Tel-Aviv, British Petroleum, and The Duchess of Kent.