An extensive solo exhibit entitled ‘Freestyle’ by award-winning artist Barbara Landry is currently on display on all three floors of the Indian River County Courthouse through Dec. 9, as part of the Cultural Council of Indian River County’s Art in Public Places program.
Commenting about the 45 paintings in the show, Landry says she chose to include a wide variety of her works.
“I always say that all artists should have a voice, and I always jokingly tell the girls, ‘I sing in a choir.’ I paint so many different things and also, I paint differently per medium,” she says.
Landry describes herself as “a Floridian, but with New England roots,” and reveals that she was raised in a family of artists.
Her mother and aunt were decorative artists, and her mother also taught classes in that popular New England art form. Decorative art, sometimes called Pennsylvania Dutch art, is considered folk art; it includes tole painting on tinware, wooden utensils and furniture, gold leafing, antique restoration and reverse painting on glass.
“It’s the type of work showcased in the new American Folk Art exhibition at the Vero Beach Museum of Art,” says Landry. “Honestly, it was so ingrained in our family that I actually never realized it was even a talent. Everybody was just so creative. They finished furniture and gold leafed it, and they stenciled, and that was a way of life.”
Prior to moving to Vero Beach in 1988 with her husband and children, they owned an inn in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, which she says “was the perfect showcase for all of my antiques and decorative furniture; it just fit into the antique colonial house that we had.”
Finding that the art form didn’t really suit the “beachier” Florida lifestyle, Landry began taking classes at the Vero Beach Museum of Art and launched into a new pursuit — painting with oils on canvas.
“I think the first show I entered was an Art in Public Places show at the administration building. I won a ribbon and thought, ‘this is pretty rewarding.’ So that was actually the catalyst for me turning professional,” Landry recalls.
She soon began taking her art on the road, setting up a tent at festivals and art shows all around Florida.
“I loved it and it was a way to sell the many things that I was painting at that time. I started off as a landscape painter, actually, because again it utilized my oil painting, which is strictly what we did with tole painting,” says Landry.
And then, 14 years ago, she was asked to become a founding member of Gallery 14, located in the Downtown Vero Beach Arts District, where she remains today as a managing partner.
“That’s how I transitioned into actually staying put. And that was wonderful, because the gallery just opened the doors for me, which is exactly what I wanted,” says Landry.
“When you’re doing the show circuit, you have to find your voice and you have to stick to it. The tent has to be cohesive, but in the gallery, we change once a month, so I could do, and I always say this, ‘art without boundaries.’”
The gallery became the incentive she needed to begin diversifying her work, freeing her up to find her own style, whereas tole painting often involves duplicating antique patterns.
“If you painted a Chippendale tray it had to have an authentic Chippendale pattern on it. It was very regimented, very strict; a duplication type of process. I think that’s why now I say ‘no boundaries,’ because I had such a rigid art background,” she explains.
“So now I do abstracts, I do resin paintings in acrylics as well. I do a variety of things,” says Landry, who has an extensive collection of animal art, travel paintings, landscapes, florals, beach scenes and some collages.
“When I go back to my oils, I definitely paint tighter, because it’s ingrained in me. When I do my animals, I love for everyone to look in their eyes and just see their soul. I really love nature and I love animal paintings. I like representational but I don’t want it to look photo realistic.”
She explains that she wants the viewers’ imagination to take over, adding, “I don’t want to spell it all out for you. My animals are like that; they’re not totally photo realistic.”
Referencing an almost dizzying painting of a group of zebras she titled ‘Stripes,’ she reveals that it “intermingles in an abstract way. It’s almost hard to pick them out individually, although there are a certain number in there. That’s how I address most of my animal paintings. You can see and identify, but your eye will take you the rest of the way.”
Landry says she has dabbled in watercolor and collage but prefers oil and occasionally acrylics.
“If I’m doing abstracts, it is strictly acrylic, because you can’t use resin without it being acrylic.
But for regular canvas work I reach for oil first. The thing about oils is that I can keep going back into it; I can keep building on my painting and can keep altering it. I find oil to be a forgiving medium,” she explains.
“Another thing is that I don’t draw out my art. Nowadays people can use light block boxes, to pencil in or trace (the design). But because I had such a rigid background doing that, I no longer do it. I don’t restrain myself in that way. Anything I paint, I do directly on the canvas. I sketch it in with my paintbrush and I build the composition and I allow myself to edit it, to change it, to change even the temperature and the colors of it at will,” says Landry.
“That’s why I enjoy it so much; because I’m not tied in. I go along and just compose it until the composition feels balanced to me. Art allows you creativity if you have the will to do it.”
Like many artists, Landry took solace in her craft during the time she was a caregiver for her husband Paul, who passed away in May.
“It really kept me sane through the very difficult times that my husband was going through. So I thank heaven for this gift that I took for granted for many years,” says Landry.
“I’m now able to get back in that life, and honestly, it is a salvation; the whole art world and creativeness. Even when things were terribly bad, I could paint, and that puts you in another zone. It’s been a blessing and all my friends in the art world, they’ve been a blessing too.”
Being asked to show her work through the Art in Public Places exhibit, Landry says, offers her a chance to “get my name back out there again. And the enthusiasm of the gallery that I can share with my partners, it’s just wonderful. It will give me a life.”
Photos by Kaila Jones
