Barbara Delaney, Light Gathers (1997)

• Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery

Fig.1 Barbara Delaney, Light Gathers (1997). © Barbara Delaney. Image Courtesy of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery

Barbara Delaney’s artistic practice is informed, but not defined, by her experience with visual impairment. Light Gathers is a strikingly visual work that celebrates light honestly and thoughtfully.

Light Gathers is one of three works by Delaney in the Birmingham Museums Trust collection. She has been an exhibiting artist since the 1970s. Her work is abstract and explores colour and light in a unique and highly stylised way. In the 1980s, Delaney suffered from a severe sight injury that prevented her from painting for some time but has subsequently helped to inform her artistic practice. As she recovered from the injury, her relationship with light changed as she experienced a new sensitivity to it.

Delaney does not identify as disabled, but her work has been informed by her experience with a visual impairment. This is evident in Light Gathers, as the painting makes the viewer experience light as a new sensation. It appears like a sunset through blurred vision, or perhaps reminds the viewer of the feeling of waking up and taking time to get used to the light.

Through her painting, she explores her relationship with light and invites the viewer to experience this with her. In all three works in the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery’s collection, her exploration of colour is prominent as she contrasts each with its own tones in order to create a vibrant, saturated image. The colours glow out from the canvas, dazzling the viewer. These rich monochromatic paintings emphasis the artists’ interest in light and our relationship with it.