Colleen McLaughlin Barlow

What is your background?

I was a 39- year- old journalist and was told I was going to die in 6 months. I went to Paris to study art for my final months and was miraculously healed. Once I was on the right trajectory for my life, which was making art, I never returned to journalism. For over the past two decades I have continued to live, be well and make art.

Of Canadian and Irish nationality, I travel widely and record my adventures in drawings, paintings, prints and sculpture. Classically trained in Florence, Paris and Kyoto, my work is found in a number of private and public collections. I have exhibited in Paris, London, Tokyo, Montreal, Vancouver, Toronto, San Francisco, Arizona, Tobermory, Oxford, Cambridge, Hawaii, Chile, and the Vatican. My work is held in the National Collection of Ireland, Cambridge University and the Vatican Collection of Astronomical Art as well as many private collections.

What is the inspiration behind your Whale Dreams series?

On a little Scottish island in the Hebrides, Inch Kenneth, a mother whale and her calf had been thrown up on the beach during a storm. They were stranded and died in the dark winter while no one was on the island. In the spring my family arrived on the island to discover these stinking carcasses. The whale skin had toughened to a hard surface which scavengers had not been able to pierce. With a strong barge, we towed the whales to an outer reef and then in a few days, the bones were picked clean by birds and crabs after being submerged in the salt water. At low tide, we returned in the barge and were able to bring the cleaned bones back to the island. I was astonished at these beautiful shapes, formed by evolution – the armature of life for these creatures, mammals like ourselves. I began drawing and painting and then began to make sculptures of these bones.

What inspires you and what is your creative process?

I am moved by the beauty of something unusual – a whale bone or the inner landscape of the human body and I am compelled to make art about it. It isn’t easy to put into words – so I make art about it. My creative process is best described as: I do whatever is needed to produce the art I am visualising in my head. So, it might become a photograph or a painting or a chalk drawing or an etching or a sculpture in bronze or stone or cast lead crystal.

What is your favourite subject matter and why?

I am inspired by many elements of the natural world and whales have been a major focus of my work for several decades. As a teenager, I was a signatory member of Greenpeace in the 1970s in Vancouver where the then small, grass-roots organisation began with the ‘Save the Whales’ campaign. I was a big fan of the documentaries of Jacques Cousteau and even contemplated becoming a marine biologist.

Who are your biggest influences?

My biggest influences are usually the preserve of science – I am completely in love with the cosmos and biological forms, from cells to bones to outer space.

What is your favourite medium?

Different visions in my head require different media. I have used ink on plasterboard, chalk drawings and paintings in oils and acrylics. For my Whale Dreams series of sculptures, I wanted something to express both preciousness and clarity to elevate the whale bones. As opaque bones, many saw them as old, dead bones. My sculptures reveal them as colourful, precious and astonishingly beautiful shapes.

How long does it take to complete a piece, and what is the entire process?

While carefully observing a single bone, I sculpt a ‘portrait’ of the bone in clay which can take upwards of two to three weeks. Then, the dried clay is fired and then shipped off to a specialty lead crystal foundry where it is cast using the lost wax process into colourful lead crystal glass. The glass reveals a higher truth about the object which cannot be seen in the original bone. You can see the relationship of the back planes of the bone through the front planes. The colours I’ve taken from sea and sky and kelp and seaweed – the colours of the whale’s environment. We often see whale bones beautifully lined up in museums to show how the whale skeleton works to support the animal. I take that apart so that each and every bone can be appreciated for its own beauty.

What subjects do you pursue and why?

I chase biological forms – in nature, in museums, in animal anatomy labs – pretty much anywhere I can find them. My friends joke that I’ve never met a bone I didn’t love! I am visually in love with these subjects and cannot offer a logical answer as to why.

What other artists have been inspirational to you in your work?

The other artists who have been inspirational to me in my work are Michelangelo, Rodin, Bernini, Rembrandt and many other classically trained artists. Having a fine art vocabulary of classical technique aids me in creating my work.

What do you hope people feel when they view your art?

I hope that the joy that I find in the beauty of these biological subjects is communicated to those who view my art.