Barry McCallion, Artist  
  • Home
  • Meet the Artist
    • Unique Books Exhibition Catalogue 2022
    • Oarsman Interview 2020
    • The Oars Journey
    • Feature Article
  • Current Works
    • Beowulf 2020
    • Paradise Lost 2014
    • Oars Library 2021-2023
    • Oars Library 2019-2020
    • Oars Library 2017-2018
    • Oars Library 2015-2016
    • Oars Library 2012-2014
    • Oars Library 2011-2012
  • Oarswork
    • Departure Poems
    • Divinations
    • Boat Provisions
    • Island 1
    • Island 2
    • Island 3
    • Island 4
    • Island 5
    • Island 6
    • Island 7
    • Island 8
    • Island 9
    • Island 10
    • Island 11
    • Island 12
  • Works in Collections
  • Bio
    • Exhibitions
    • Grants
    • Publications
  • Contact
                                                Welcome to my website.   
It is currently under construction so please keep checking back to see new additions.
             Current Work is being added in the Oars Library II.  Take a look.

                                  How the Collected Oarswork Came to Be


In California, in 1970, a man in a rowboat, hovering, shimmering like tinsel, suddenly appeared in my living room.  I had grown tired on an "art of inner necessity," tired, too, of Pop Art's embrace of the commonplace.  I wanted to create a new world.


It was a gift, this vision.  I took the Oarsman as my subject- a traveler in a small boat who sets out (as we all do) over unknown seas.  I began by stocking the boat with objects and paintings of bread, cheese, sausage and drink.  (See Earlier Works:  Oarsman's Origins)  I also created a library of visual books for him.   (See  Oarslibrary I under Earlier Works.)  
Once out to sea, the Oarsman encounters islands.   Early on in his journey, a technologically primitive people supply him with magical implements-rattles to calm turbulence, cowrie shell dance leggings, charms, a coconut shell cup for divinations.  (See Island 1 under Earlier Works.)  A later island is composed of images that appear by chance, visual "ready-mades"- depicting a year of Berlin Dreams in a series of seventy-six paintings.  (See Island 3 under Earlier Works.)


To date I have fashioned fourteen islands and am currently working on expanding the original Oarslibrary.  (See Current Work, Oarslibrary II.)


Barry McCallion



  • Home
  • Meet the Artist
    • Unique Books Exhibition Catalogue 2022
    • Oarsman Interview 2020
    • The Oars Journey
    • Feature Article
  • Current Works
    • Beowulf 2020
    • Paradise Lost 2014
    • Oars Library 2021-2023
    • Oars Library 2019-2020
    • Oars Library 2017-2018
    • Oars Library 2015-2016
    • Oars Library 2012-2014
    • Oars Library 2011-2012
  • Oarswork
    • Departure Poems
    • Divinations
    • Boat Provisions
    • Island 1
    • Island 2
    • Island 3
    • Island 4
    • Island 5
    • Island 6
    • Island 7
    • Island 8
    • Island 9
    • Island 10
    • Island 11
    • Island 12
  • Works in Collections
  • Bio
    • Exhibitions
    • Grants
    • Publications
  • Contact