Roses for Remembrance; Love and Loss….Nature’s Palette from our artists’ brushes and palette knives…

Surrounded as I am by African wilderness, gardening with and painting indigenous African plants in the majority of my working days, and as much as I love the deceptively simple yet challenging lifestyle of embracing wilderness, yet still I relish the simple, full blown and lush scented beauty of an exotic import, a classic rose.

In our Harare garden, Studio 214, my artist daughter Kelli Barker and I treasure the white iceberg roses we planted with my father Arthur Barrie. Dad’s mantra was “Save the Owls” and we learnt well; we do treasure every living thing, human and other, that shares our Harare garden space and our lowveld bush space.

Inspired by these hardy yet exquisite iceberg roses, I often paint them…and below is a soft detail from my larger painting, “White Roses”, acrylic on canvas, 3 x 2 feet ….

Here is detail from another painting, “Iceberg rose”, acrylic on stretched canvas, 60 x 60 cm…..diving deep into the petals- and finding Just Joy therein!!! “Just Joy” is the Dulux Colour of the year for 2025 – glorious golden yellow which is a glowing counterpoint to the pale lilac “sweet embrace” which is colour of the year 2024. ( Do I detect shades of Georgia O Keefe…?!)

Oh that yellow!!!!!… Just Joy indeed.

The final reveal, at Picabela Rose Nursery, will be an art fundraising in October this year, benefitting the Harare Childrens Home. Picabela will be displaying various paintings by many Zimbabwean artists with the theme “Nature’s Palette”- set in their glorious rose gardens … Watch this space !

The burgundy iceberg roses I planted for Kelli at our Harare art studio, Studio 214, (burgundy being her favourite colour), inspire her art make ups, her photoshoots and her own abstract canvas art..

Kelli Barker, “Petal Pink, Nature’s Palette”, is a diptych, each painting of the pair being 60 x 60 cm…. Kelli’s use of all the shades of burgundy to barbie pink to palest lilac pink, come together in a sweet dramatic embrace….!! wait for the final reveal…

Another deeply expressionist abstract artwork by Kelli, is a painting titled “Blood Red, Rose Red’, acrylic on canvas, 61 x 91 cm, inspired by intense blood/rose colours…. This is a most moving painting by Kelli, one of my favourites which makes me think of so many things; the petals and inner parts of a rose flower; a Life Force, the blood cells pulsing through the very organs of our bodies; a Sleeping Beauty (or Briar Rose as she is called in some fairytales), entranced by a witch to forever sleep, surrounded by an impenetrable thorn thicket…….. until such time as her true love finds her….. here is an exquisite and poignant detail from this painting…

and another detail, can’t resist the sumptuousness…

I often carry old fashioned scented rose flowers, gifted by dear friends, back to my bush studio to paint, even as the petals fall in the intense lowveld heat.. life and death, from freshness to decay, all things connected…

falling petals create impressions…

Falling petals create abstraction…I lay thick daubes of colour, petals dropping from my palette knife, (itself a treasured remembrance of my artist father who used it since he was 18 years old!!!)

Petals falling from above, gradually become a painting, “perfumed petals”…

Lin Barrie, “Perfumed Petals”, acrylic on stretched canvas, 60 x 60 cm, finished artwork, will be revealed here in October ….keep watching…

That painting translated into a Valentine’s Day photoshoot, first at our art studio, by Kelli, dear musician friend Hope Masike, Sebastien Lallemand, The Faz Pixels and my self, an Art collaboration …

This burgundy rose seemed to perfectly epitomize the gloriously colourful words and songs that flow from our dear Hope’s lips, as she plays and sings her haunting mbira refrains and speaks her poetical written words….

Scented Petals painting detail and our burgundy iceberg roses at Studio 214, photoshoot with Hope Masike… note Tammy Taylor’s gorgeous nails!

Afrte shooting at Studio 214, we then took Hope and the art to Picabela Rose Nursery for further Rose filled Valentine inspiration…

Kelli created petal pink art, nature’s palette, on Hope’s eyelids, with our trusty palette knife!…..

and laid Hope out on a bed of roses………

What is it about a rose that, above all other flowers, inspires poetry, remembrance….?

A fallen rose, a lost love, lying alone against my sunset coloured abstract canvas painting……

Lin Barrie, “Abstract”, acrylic on loose canvas, 90 x 111 cm….

Back to cool colours….The thought of the delightful iceberg roses I have photographed at Picabella on many visits hangs gentle in my mind….

as I near the completion of a large rose painting at my open air bush studio at our home camp, Kaya Nyala, on the banks of the Save River…

Art combined with the sweet embrace of domesticity…Cooking makes me want to paint, and painting makes me want to cook!!…. from open air art table…

to open air bush kitchen is but a few steps, and so in between painting roses I am making eland mince and sugar beans into my hybrid version of mauritian Haleem curry and Mexican cowboy chilli con carne, in my Kaya Nyala bush kitchen ..

A wild life, surrounded by vines and monkeys, and supported by Dulux colors Sweet Embrace, Wild Wonder and Just Joy.

.In between overnight layers of drying colour, I take my mutsvairo, my bush broom, to dust the surface of my huge rose painting clean ..

and as walk my bush brick path, as I sweep my painted roses, I am healing, cleansing, remembering, clearing my mind, purging bad thoughts, allowing tears to fall, sifting sad and happy thoughts, making space for all….

Sweet Embrace, the dulux colour of the year 2024, is a perfect colour. I use it with just joy (!) in this painting, together with earth-inspired Wild Wonder. The softest lilac pink imaginable, eat your heart out, brash barbie pink….!!

Lin Barrie, “Nature’s Palette, Sweet Embrace”, acrylic on stretched canvas, 141 x 173… watch this blog for the full huge painting to be revealed in the gardens at Picabela…

Picabela Rose Nursery remains a favourite place for us to retreat to in Harare, scented beauty and calm memories at every turn…inspiration for our paintings, mother and daughter…

we are so honoured to contribute artworks to the annual art fundraising.

Keep watching this blog, as a few of these paintings make it into that rose-filled scented space….!

Such a lovely garden setting for our paintings

joyous colour from the canvas created by Kelli…

All photographs are mine, and copyright, unless otherwise stated.