Carlos takes off humanities’ clothes and people look normal, honest of intent and decent .. dignity prevails and resides in his world.
He looks under the surface and freely paints the spiritual connection between, women, men, children and animals, including imaginary figures in the pool of life.
Negativity does not present itself in his world, the dead and death is simply a reality of existence, a life factor, part of the cycle of birth and an inevitable end for all of us.
Family, life experience, life passion, soul and love are his forms of expression. Thereby we are visually and emotionally drawn to his universal ‘family of man’.
Carlos’s paintings and ceramic works make ‘living life’ desirable. They are colourful and evocative. They have a truth to them, and often his ceramics express with humour the playfulness of a child.
With his feet on the ground, and his eyes in the Heavens, Carlos brings life connections between people close, as one with a big heart would in an idyllic village.
Carlos’s works express, the depths of human hearts, and all that lives, as loving partners.
In some works he expresses part of life as a mysterious spirit world.
One of the things about great artists are that they are recognisably unique, well Carlos’s works certainly are!
Max Halley
Collector and Poet
Carlos Barrios was born in San Salvador, El Salvador,Central America and now lives and works in the Currumbin Valley in Queensland. Ancient sites and pyramids have influenced his work.
“I would stare into them [artefacts] and found myself transported to other dimensions, times and spaces. Everything was talking to me especially clouds and shadows, they seemed to describe a space between reality and fantasy, filled with adventures.”
Carlos Barrios began painting figures and creatures from his imagination at the age of six. However, when he was ten, civil war broke out and Barrios found himself illustrating the horrific scenes of war.
“The civil war began when I was ten and lasted over ten years. In this war time madness and normality coexisted. Many nights the electricity was cut and in the candle lit spaces of the house I saw creatures moving and watching us, so I would paint and draw them. As I worked, I would watch my hand moving, creating the figures and creatures, I was the onlooker, the witness to this seemingly automatic unfolding of pictures, visual descriptions.”
The focus of his artworks is to paint the good he believes is in everyone. This is the reason many of his paintings are filled with figures, “I must paint people”, Barrios explains. Barrios has been a finalist in several art prizes including the Blake Prize, Sulman Prize, NSW Plein Air ArtPrize and the Fisher Ghost Art Prize.
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