Impressionist artist, Barry Thomas, floods his canvases with light, vibrant energy and vivid color.  His broad, heavily impastoed brush strokes create tender, moving scenes of mothers and children and larger than life still lifes.  It has been said that this Little Rock, Arkansas painter "looks less like the subject matter he paints than it is possible to imagine."  At well over six feet tall and broad shouldered he looks like he would be more at home on the football field than holding a paintbrush—and he was when he played for the famed Lou Holtz at the University of  Arkansas.  With the encouragement of Coach Holtz Barry decided to "follow his dream" of becoming an artist and studied at the Art Center College of Design in California.

Barry's vivid palette and evocative subject matter have made him a widely collected and sought after artist.  His wife, Piper, and their three children are the main focus of his life and the subject of many of his canvases.  He says, "I surround myself with the things I love…music, people, books; they all have a positive influence on me.  I like to create paintings that have positive messages."