Hails gallery

Barrett-Hails loves color, texture, and has a nice eye for composition.  What strikes the viewer first is the incredible skill she demonstrates in her paintings of seafood and a French breakfast. Her surfaces in these paintings are highly realistic, and yet the color is often applied so that it appears abstract when seen close-up, the oysters are a fine example.
 
I love the fact that the work is autobiographical. It’s great when an artist has a meaningful statement about her exhibit, but Barrett-Hails give us so much more: comments about each painting tell the viewer that place the image holds in her oeuvre and/or her heart. Maturity, we learn, is a fine thing.  It enables us to bring to the surface the best and most meaningful aspects of the past.  It then ties together past and future.
 
 Although many works are intimate, there is s strong collective aspect as well, a large painting of the roof and signage of the Penny Profit is an example.  Viewers will echo the artist’s comments.