Aesthetics of Splendour: Artist Profile – Barry William Hale

Interview for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, conducted by Sam Doust.

In this self-portrait we look at the work of Barry Hale, an artist exploring magical visions that merge Occident and Orient.

How do you live?
Day by day.

Where do you live?
Newtown, Sydney

How often do you work and for how long?
It’s hard for me not to work. I draw all the time, on scraps of paper, serviettes, anything that’s around. If I visit a friend often later they tell me I’ve drawn on their bills, letters and even in their diaries.

Why do you do it at all?
I don’t do it – something else does; I’m compelled to.

What are you working on now?
I’m busy this month organising upcoming exhibitions for this year and next, in London, Sydney, Melbourne and LA. I’m also working on a book with Jack Sargent. It’s hard for me not to work. I draw all the time, on scraps of paper, serviettes, anything that’s around.

Do you suffer for your art?
I never suffer for my art; though external factors can be trying. For example some people might think I have made considerable lifestyle sacrifices.

Do you have any money?
No. But I never lack.

Who will you be when you are seventy?
A content, vital, active, artistic old man.

If you love beauty will you suffer less?
This is a philosophical question because it implies there is beauty; and this is an entry into judgement, absolutism. Perhaps you will suffer less if you have less fixed notions of beauty. Though I do question the notion of suffering as an underlying principal of life.

Is your work beautiful?
In my work I like to use aesthetics in which there is splendour but not necessarily classical (cultural) beauty.

Is there such a thing as a truly blank canvas?
No, only a vibrant potential.

What do you dream about?
The other night I dreamt I was in a mansion where the stairways and rooms were continually changing. The walls were scarlet with gold trimmings. I was bit lost. I said to myself I needed a guide, at which point a small well dressed man appeared and he asked me, telepathically, do you want to meet your angel. I was unsure about whether I did, but I said maybe. He took me into a dark room, and I was aware there was a person there I couldn’t see. Then I went to another part of the house where there was a food market with plenty of exotic food, and I ate lots of delicious food.

What is the point?
I think it’s a kind of transmission. For me personally, I have an idea, I articulate it, it comes to some resolution and then I let it go. Letting it go, for example in an exhibition, creates a new vacuum into which new ideas flood. It’s a continuum.

Will you make a difference?
I personally believe the death of the imagination occurred with the Reformation. I suppose I aim to revivify imagination in my own way.

What is the best thing about being an artist?
It’s fun; it’s exciting; it’s inspiring.

What is the worst?
Your obsession eclipses everything else.

Are you a pretentious buffoon?
Is this a trick question?

Aesthetics of Splendour: Artist Profile – Barry William Hale

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