Barry G. Masteller (born 1945) 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. As an artist, he does not limit himself to a single medium; while perhaps most notable for his use of oil paints, he has created works of art from such materials as charcoal, pencils, acrylics, and mixed media, as well as through his more recent use of film photography.
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Barry G. Masteller (born 1945) 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. As an artist, he does not limit himself to a single medium; while perhaps most notable for his use of oil paints, he has created works of art from such materials as charcoal, pencils, acrylics, and mixed media, as well as through his more recent use of film photography. Masteller was born April 21, 1945 in Los Angeles California and grew up in the Silver Lake district. His paintings are in the public collections of The Palace of The Legion of Honor, the Achenbach Collection, the San Jose Museum of Art, the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, the Palm Springs Museum of Art, the 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; in light of formal education in art, he is considered an "Outsider artist," albeit one of world renown. 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, which were often hand stitched to the surface of the canvas. 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 and abiding interest in photography since relocating to the Monterey Peninsula from Los Angeles in 1970. His photographs are centered around both landscapes and the figure, and are often reworked in post production into abstractions that have an otherworldly look. Describing his photographic work, Masteller had this to say: "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 handheld camera I can't expect to get a "picture" [in the traditional sense]. 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 receding and approaching sunlight for its beautiful blues and violets and any other accidental light source that finds its way onto the sensor of my camera."
* Barry Masteller in his Studio, 2015