Born in 1948, Barry Pogorel has painted and sculpted his entire life. Early in his career he exhibited widely, then chose to show his art privately for many years.  He is now re-emerging in the public space. He was mentored by, studied with, and was greatly influenced by a select group of artists he admired, including William Brice, Ed Ruscha, Lynne Foulkes, Richard Diebenkorn, and R.B. Kitaj.  Barry received his Master of Fine Arts from UCLA. He works intensely, sometimes taking 10 years or more to complete a single piece.  His work has been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Claremont Colleges Gallery, the Talisman Gallery of Los Angeles, University Art Museum, California State at Long Beach and in many private collections from 1974 to the present.

At one point, he became fascinated with Zen and its expression in art since it has a strong harmonic with his own sensibility. Zenga is a quickly executed painting with sumi brush and black ink by a Zen master in the state of meditation. This greatly influenced much of Barry’s work, including Ensho. “Ensho” in Zen tradition represents the “void,” the wholeness/emptiness of the Universe from which everything arises. His Ensho is a vortex you enter.

“I have always engaged in the question:  how do I create a great painting? It’s really inexplicable.  When I make a painting, I am not “me.”  When art is really happening, it’s transcendent.  What gets expressed is a voice that is not mine, but all of ours.”