Polly, Minou and Eon 1979

Will Barnet made 'Polly, Minou and Eon', which seems to have emerged through the patient building up of layers of thin paint. Imagine the concentration it took, moving between the creatures, rendering the checkerboard table top, and the almost architectural lines of the thread. I sympathise with Barnet as he stands back, considering the relationship between the flat and the spatial. Look at the way the thread pulls our eye back and forth between the parrot, the cat, the dog, and the hand of the human. The whole image seems to question where the foreground ends and the background begins. It’s a painting about domesticity, a theme he comes back to again and again in his work. You sense that Barnet is in conversation with other painters, such as Henri Matisse, with the way the lines, flat planes, and decorative patterns interlock. But the composition is all his own. It’s a painting that invites you to keep looking.