Gareth Barlow – ‘Intimate Echos’
Don’t It Feel Good Just To Be Alive? $12,500 Status: Available - upcoming exhibition
But, Something’s Wrong, I Feel Uneasy $12,500 Status: Available - upcoming exhibition
There’s A Battle Ahead, Many Battles Are Lost $6,500 framed Status: Available - upcoming exhibition
You Are High And Mighty And Unlikely To Learn Lessons $TBA framed Status: Available - upcoming exhibition
But I Can See Some One Else’s Shadow In The Room $6,500 framed Status: Available - upcoming exhibition
Because You Used Me For Your Loneliness $6,500 framed Status: Available - upcoming exhibition
I Know It’s Just Bravado $10,500 framed Status: Available - upcoming exhibition
The Lust Of A Pioneer Will Acknowledge No Frontier $10,500 framed Status: Available - upcoming exhibition
Looking Back Having Made It Across $14,500 framed Status: Available - upcoming exhibition
Once We Were Damned, Now I Guess We Are Angels $14,500 framed Status: Available - upcoming exhibition
We are pleased to invite you to join Gareth Barlow at the opening reception of his 2026 show
‘INTIMATE ECHOS’
GARETH BARLOW
Thursday 12th November 5-7pm
rsvp: ron@exhibitionsgallery.co.nz
My work has always been concerned with connection: to people, to place, to culture, and to the natural world around us. Birds have been a constant presence within that exploration, carrying ideas of memory, guardianship, identity and the unseen threads that connect us to Aotearoa.
Intimate Echoes continues the journey from Connection Songs, turning the focus towards the quiet and often unexpected intimacy that can exist between
a person and a bird, and the memories and connections that can live within those encounters.
When I photograph a bird, there is a moment of connection that feels surprisingly similar to sitting with a human subject. For a brief time, we share the same space, the same air, and become part of each other’s world. I observe the bird, the bird observes me, and something passes between us. Yet within that present moment there can also be something familiar—a call,
a gesture, a place or simply a feeling that reaches back through memory. The encounter becomes more than what is happening in front of me; it carries something of what has been before.
Perhaps this is one of the extraordinary things about birds. A familiar call can return us to a childhood garden, a particular landscape, a person, or a feeling from another time. In both Māori and Celtic traditions, birds have also been regarded as messengers between worlds—carrying messages to and from our tīpuna, our ancestors, or appearing as omens of what may come. They hold a
particular mana: carrying hope, memory and the possibility that, in recognisinga bird or speaking to it, something of our own message might travel beyond
the world we can see.
These experiences are often shared with my wife, Chantal. Together we spend time photographing birds, sometimes experiencing a moment with the same
bird, sometimes separately. The paintings and drawings that follow are away of revisiting these encounters and the memories they awaken, while
celebrating the moments we have each shared with birds.
Birds are quintessentially of Aotearoa. They inhabit our gardens, forests, coastlines and memories, forming part of the soundscape and character of the country we share. In these works, they become quiet companions through time—present in the moment while carrying something of the past, and
perhaps something beyond it, with them.
Intimate Echoes is about these fleeting encounters and what they carry: a moment shared, a memory awakened, and a connection that continues to
resonate long after the bird has flown.
I would like to acknowledge the following people for their inspiration in naming these works: Martin Phillipps, Don McGlashan, Tim Finn, Dave Dobbyn, Jennie Skulander, Chris Matthews, Michael Lawry, Elizabeth Stokes, Neil Finn, Jon Toogood, Tom Larkin, Phil Knight, and Karl Kippenberger.
artwork available to purchase prior to the opening