Barry Dickins

Barry Dickins

Born 1949

Barry Dickins' career as a painter took off with a solo exhibition at Bottoms Gallery in Carlton in 1973. He followed this with a thirty year detour into publishing books, writing plays and working as a columnist for The Nation Review, The Australian, The Age, The Herald Sun and The Melbourne Times. But then, starting with his solo show at William Mora Gallery in 2004 and subsequently with us, Barry returned to his first love, drawing and painting, producing artworks that chart his whimsical delight in Melbourne's streets and the magical characters who inhabit them.  Using ink, chalk and charcoal often in brilliant colour, Barry's art is a contemplation - a landscape of dreams where sadness, joy, repose and the grotesque, journey together through the pathways of the mind.