Anne Meredith Barry

Heffel Auction House Biography and Notes

Anne Meredith Barry’s practice was focussed on the natural beauty of Newfoundland, taking inspiration from the constantly changing landscape viewed from her studio window. Born in Toronto, Barry visited Newfoundland for the first time in 1971. The trip proved to be transformative: she would return to the province frequently, before settling in the coastal community of St. Michael’s in 1987, where she would remain for the rest of her life. As an accomplished painter and printmaker, Barry excelled in creating evocative landscape images that tried to capture both the raw power and fragile precarity of the natural world. The large-scale canvas Big Wave #3, Orange Moon shows Barry at her most extravagant, as she renders the power of the sea coast with characteristic force and beauty. A huge swirl of white surf crashes against the rocky coast, seeming to dwarf the land in a vibrant blast, while a turmoil of eddies and pools bubble and churn amidst the lower crags. Further out to sea, the reflection of the searing orange moon is rendered against the dark water in skeins of flashing silver pigment. To emphasize the latent energy of the scene, the sky is here done in a darkly simmering maroon, while a hint of salted seabreeze whips across the canvas in dynamic slashes. The work is an evocative expression of the power and elegance of the north Atlantic coast that Barry was so familiar with. This work was included in the first major retrospective of the artist’s work, held at The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery in St. John’s in 2007.