About
The Studio of Philip Barry Forsyth
Paintings from the memory of sound
I am a contemporary abstract painter working in oils and acrylics.
My paintings begin with sounds and the memories they leave behind.
A sound can disappear almost as soon as we hear it, yet somehow remain with us for years. A voice, a piece of music, rain against a window, the hum of a machine, footsteps in a particular place — sometimes what remains is not the sound itself but an emotion attached to it.
I am interested in that space between hearing and remembering.
In the studio, I try to translate those memories into paint. I think about rhythm, repetition, colour, movement, silence and atmosphere, allowing the painting to develop through the physical process of making. The finished work is not an illustration of a particular sound. It is an attempt to find its emotional memory.
This website is a place to follow that process.
Each week I write a letter from the studio about the paintings I am working on, the memories and sounds behind them, things I am looking at and thinking about, and the discoveries and failures that happen along the way.
I also want this to be a place for conversation — particularly with other artists, but also with people who collect, live with, advise on or simply love art.
There is no finished theory behind the work. I am still discovering what these paintings are trying to say.
The studio letter is where I share that discovery.
Join me each week.
Philip