Mike Barr is one of those artists who have not been bewitched by the many possibilities that the camera can offer but has remained faithful to an artistic technique that may seem antiquated to some, one of those things that you study at school, that is oil painting.

What I recommend is not to be prejudiced, because there is nothing more interesting than discovering how a technique that is centuries old has been adapted to modern subjects. 

One example is his series of paintings entitled Rainy Cityscapes in which he represents the contemporary subject par excellence, the city. 

Mike’s dense and decisive brushstrokes give life to high buildings and busy streets where in the end the real protagonist is the light, because although, as the name suggests, his cities are dreary and humid, what stands out are the car headlights, the LEDs of the trams, the signs of the shops, the windows lit up, all covered by a dark veil, a bit of melancholy and a bit of loneliness.