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Biography

Non-representational artist, Howard R. Barnhart, was born in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, USA, in 1946. His father was a career navel officer from central Pennsylvania; his mother, a designer from Vilnius, Lithuania.   He traveled extensively throughout childhood living in many regions of the United States as well as abroad.   In 1958 his family settled in Weymouth, Massachusetts, USA, where he completed high school.   In 1964 he entered Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, USA.   While a premedical student at Bowdoin, his interest in fine art emerged. In 1968 he entered Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, Massachusetts. Throughout medical training his involvement in the arts intensified and focused on visual disciplines.   After receiving his MD in 1972, he accepted a commission in the National Health Service Corp. of the U. S. Public Health Service. In 1973, he finalized his decision to change career from medicine to visual art, and, after discharge from the service in 1974, he moved back to Boston and attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts until 1978. In 1974 he also began his art journal, which he has maintained ever since. In 1982 Barnhart returned to Maine with his wife, Esther, and their two children, Naomi and Sydney.   He presently resides in Tenants Harbor, Maine, where he also has his studio.

Studio, Tenants Harbor, Maine,
working on construction for composition 2002n10a

During the 1970’s, Barnhart’s work passed through Surrealist and Cubist phases.  Guided by his mentor at the Boston Museum School, Andrew Syrbick, he became increasingly intrigued by the nonrepresentational movements of early twentieth century Europe (Suprematism, Constructivism, De Stijl, the Bauhaus.) He also began to feel a deep connection with the influence those movements had had on visual arts in the United States during the 1950's and 1960's.

By 1980 the primary focus of his work was shifting decisively toward a constructivist approach combined with a strong colorist component. Influenced by a diverse group of non-representational artists (Malevich, Tatlin, Mondrian, Gabo, Moholy-Nagy, Albers, Itten, Noland, Mangold, Syrbick,) Barnhart made his own compositions directly in acrylic on shaped panels.

   Studio, Tenants Harbor, Maine,
working on construction for composition 2002n11a (1988n02b)

By  the late 1980's color had assumed as significant a role in Barnhart's art as constructivist techniques.  This presented him with the contradictions and technical problems inherent in combining colorist and constructivist tendencies with equal emphasis. At that time his attempts to solve these difficulties were proving so laborious that the impulse and direction of the work were often lost in mid-composition. Then in the early 1990's, he began to explore the computer as an aid in color composition. As hardware and graphics programs advanced, the computer showed itself to be a most effective resource for overcoming the problems he had faced in the late 1980's. By 2000 the computer had become his primary means of composing as well as a source of animations, digital prints and digital projections. These animations and digital prints formed a basis for his constructions.  He found that animations, prints and constructions could be displayed in combination to present a composition as a multimedia polytych, or they could be viewed separately as individual works of art.

From 2002 through 2004, Howard R. Barnhart completed twenty nonrepresentational compositions each of which includes one or more computer animations, sets of digital prints and constructions. All of the constructions are wall reliefs made of acrylic, panels and wood.  Work on this series continues in 2005.

Grace Peters
Barnhart's Studio
watercolor, September, 2003
 

To view images of Barnhart's most recent work please navigate to Current Work.  To view images of constructions from past series please navigate to Archive.

Email rick@barnhartart.com

Copyright ã 2002-2007   Howard R. Barnhart.   All rights reserved.