Kyle Barnes /

Born in Ireland in 1986, Kyle Barnes uses oil paints on canvas to create hyperrealistic portraits with such precision that many observers initially assume they are viewing a photograph. But in his work Barnes goes far beyond just the desire for perfect craftsmanship.

He understands his portraits as a commentary on the constant change that man is subjected to on his way through life and of which he is shaped not only as a person, but also externally shaped. Thus the faces of the people in Barnes' often large-scale works are also clearly marked by the traces of life, and this on two levels: life has impressed its mark on the physiognomy, on the facial expression, the texture of the skin, the features around the eyes and the corners of his mouth, and in this way has grown together with him and become an inseparable part of him.

The drawings of life can be found in numerous motifs by Barnes, but also in the now characteristic for him marks of color on the surface of the skin - in face and hair, on hands and arms. This application of color within the motif can be read as a superficial, washable, yet reversible effect of life, which begins to impress itself on the skin and merge with the human being.

In order to achieve the desired effect, the artist, now living in the British city of Southampton, is particularly interested in the surface structure of the skin and hair and uses the fabric of the canvas when painting to achieve a deceptively realistic depiction.

This quality has earned him numerous awards including the National Open Art Competition's Towry Award 2012 and the 2014 Young Artist Award and the People's Choice Award from the Royal Ulster Academy Belfast. His works can be found in numerous public and private collections and are discussed in renowned art publications.



Giuseppe Biguzzi/

The only subjects of my paintings are women and their bodies: abandoned and dragged by the fast running of today's liquid society, diluted destinies, surrendered to daily life. These bodies show themselves to the viewer, soaked with livid colors, following the paths of a metamorphosis from which the whole process is generated. Sensual bodies, alluring and seductive, bodies falling out the desire to personify and to express the existential drama of everyday life.
With their presence, those bodies enhance the absence of their own ego: their faces are always painted in profile or turned downwards; their gaze do never meet the viewers’ eyes.
Those bodies let everybody else look at themselves in complete indifference.

With my artworks, my purpose is to draw attention on one of the most exploited icons in the history of art, as a pretext to assert the subject himself: female figure. Through this image, I try to show the emotional state generated by the daily life in contemporary society.
Woman becomes a symbol of denied identity, made up of forced and illusory emancipation, apart from its own nature. Consumer society assigns to women trivial values which are used in every form to promote commercial products and vacuum dreams.
The denial of the gaze determines the impossibility of interaction between representation and the observer. The representation function is canceled; it’s isolated and alienated completely from the rest, making it independent.
The painted bodies don’t enhance the desire but the depressed abandonment of falling down.