The art of Clive Barker.

 “Nothing else wounds so deeply and irreparably. Nothing else robs us of hope so much as being unloved by one we love”    
― Clive Barker

    Clive Barker is primarily known as a author and filmmaker but his most interesting work for me is his oil paintings. They seem to pose the question what if van gogh was obsessed with universal horror films and metaphysics as apposed to sunflowers and starry nights. The beauty of Clive Barker's paintings, is his fascination with both whimsical but grotesque personalities and creatures. Rich with texture that only extremely close up shots of the canvas do justice (if not being seen in person) to his pattern of painting pictures on top of pictures, then taking a steak knife and scratching away at some of the layers to bring out the forgotten painting beneath the layers. Revealing something about the man, I think, in that no matter how harsh he judges his works prior failures have a place in the process of growth in every human being.

     Mr Barker ounce told a story that I am going to repeat. He said, and I am paraphrasing here, that as a gay man he can never have kids. but that he met a young man who wanted to be a film-maker and he became Clive's adopted son. The young man died of a overdoes in film school, and Clive in tears told the story. Of how his mother came to a book signing and asked Clive to talk to the young man and that was how their friendship started and why he helped the young man get into film school. I do none of this justice but this is a blog written by a paranoid schizophrenic. My purpose with that story is just to emphasize the humanity of a man who started his career by seeing how he could mutilate the human form (the books of blood/hell raiser.) and had ended it with the expression of how much of the human soul he can save. Clive Barker is a visionary and if I was as talented as he was I would do his work justice but since I am not. I will gladly point you in the direction of his paintings and tell you to take a look.