John Barlow graduated from the University of Washington in 2007 with a bachelor of fine arts in ceramics. After graduation, John worked for the Seattle-based artist Mary Van Cline where he learned glass casting. Specifically, John honed his technical skills in mold making, sculpting and firing techniques. John's work focuses on creating narrative through the use of psychologically-engaging environments. In undergraduate, John created mixed-media, small-scale sculptures and photographed them so that the spaces appeared to be real. By using photography, John could control how viewers engaged the spaces he created and encourage them to create a story for what they saw. More recently, John has begin working in smaller glass pieces and drawing. 

The castle/house with trees/hallway/stairway landing are all small scale sculptures I made using mixed media. The pieces are made of things like cardboard, clay, burlap, paper, and balsa wood, and then photographed so that they evoke the feeling of a space that really exists. Typically, when I photographed the sculptures I set them up in a pitch black room and take a picture using a very long shutter speed (30+ seconds). I would use flashlights/candles/etc. in the room to "paint" the sculpture with light and keep doing this until I got an exposure that I liked. The instillation piece is a light box covered in amber resin. The box is made of an old, repurposed window. The drawings are just things I've done recently. They are inspired by Alfred Kubin, a surrealist who did drawings for Poe's books.