Barry Assed

The shapes and edges I draw are combined with abstract mark making to expand upon the arbitrary. Using pieces of torn paper as stencils, I create images that suggest an abstract puzzle whose pieces are overlapped and misplaced. The continuity in these images lays in the repeated shapes which are a metaphor for the chaotic or random event and our attempts to instill a kind of meaning to it or just create a design.

This series of images originates from an idea I had in the late 1990s which uses a decorative screen as a stencil. I later enlarged the pattern by cutting my own stencils.

This pattern has been adapted and used for interior and exterior architectural applications throughout the world.

My work fluctuates between using the pattern as one element of the composition or the focus of the composition itself.

I have been interested in art since childhood, and although I never made my living from it, I enjoy the challenge of creating art.

Biography

Barry Assed’s paintings and drawings have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in galleries and museums throughout the mid-Atlantic region, including the Allentown Art Museum in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and the Muscarelle Museum of Art at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. Mr. Assed’s work is in the permanent collection of the Muscarelle Museum of Art in Williamsburg, Virginia, and has recently been exhibited in New Haven, Connecticut, in a show juried by Dean Robert Storr. In addition to winning local awards, his work has been in group exhititions in Germany and Italy. Barry Assed was born in Northampton, Pennsylvania, and studied drawing and sculpture at Kutztown University. He currently resides in Whitehall, Pennsylvania.