Simon Barlow | Still

We are thrilled to present STILL, a solo exhibition by Simon Barlow at Studio Gallery Armadale.

SIMON BARLOW | STILL

Date: Friday, 6 November 2026
Time: 5:00pm – 7:00pm
Location: Studio Gallery Armadale
1238 High Street, Armadale VIC 3143
Exhibition Dates: 6–20 November 2026

RSVP HERE

Join us for opening night, featuring an intimate artist talk with Simon as we explore the inspiration, philosophy and creative process behind this extraordinary body of work.

Simon Barlow has found his artistic home in peonies. They continue to captivate him, presenting not only the ultimate artistic challenge, but a subject that is simultaneously intricate, delicate and immensely powerful.

He approaches each composition not as a traditional still life, but as a distinct, individual portrait. Every flower possesses its own character, its own personality and its own commanding presence.

Drawing inspiration from the visceral realism of Caravaggio, Simon employs chiaroscuro, the dramatic interplay of light and shadow, to achieve the luminosity that defines his current body of work.

The magic of his paintings lies in the tension between the dark, stark backgrounds and the delicacy of his subjects. Neither exists in isolation; rather, they interact to create a compelling sense of drama. Translating a flower from the dark void into the light relies entirely on the foundational drawing skills he first honed forty years ago at art school.

"Painting for me takes on a trance-like process," Simon explains. "With each stroke of the brush, each breath, I find a rhythm that takes me away to my idyll. It is much like the feeling that yoga or swimming brings."

Beneath the visual splendour of Simon's large-scale botanicals lies a deeply philosophical thematic core. His latest solo exhibition, Still, is a homage to his monumental peonies, exploring the profound contradiction of a flower that is intensely alive, yet completely motionless; something transient, captured permanently in paint.

"Preparing for an exhibition is a very fulfilling process. Although I return to old favourites of mine, I approach them with a renewed vigor. It's a chance to explore my process and use new inspiration and material."

Flowers, with their inherently short lifespans, serve as the perfect vessels for this exploration. They reflect the trajectory of human existence: beautiful, delicate, powerful and ultimately, inescapably transient.

Across Simon's canvases, the viewer encounters the ethereal remnants of light caressing the surfaces of each petal. His paintings reveal both the obvious and the suggested, existing on the threshold between the tangible and the enigmatic. They become visual elegies, honouring life's fleeting moments of wonder before the inevitability of decay.

By capturing these blooms in a state of suspended animation, just before they begin to wither, Simon isolates a fleeting moment of fragile perfection. It is a moment free from adversity, pain or fear; an image that bypasses the logical mind and speaks directly to the subconscious, drawing the viewer into an encounter that is both deeply intimate and impossible to look away from.

For exhibition enquiries, artwork availability or to arrange a private viewing, please contact our team at ask@studiogallerygroup.com.