He was born and raised in Brisbane, Australia and lived there until he emigrated to Canada at the age of 27.The light and colours of sunny Queensland and the work of Australian landscape painters such as Sir Arthur Streeton and Sydney Long had a lasting impression of Barrie.
Barrie became an architect and hoped that he would be able to pursue his art in his spare time.He found he had little time to do that while still working as an architect but now that he is retired he is spending all of his time painting.
"I love to paint and I am happiest of all when I have a paint brush in my hand, applying paint to canvas.Most of my work is acrylic since I favour the medium, it has great flexibility and covering power."
Landscape, seascapes, genre and urban scenes are his favorite subjects.He tries to capture the material under varying light with strong compositional elements to hold the viewers' interest.His strong illustrative works have an impressionistic quality that set his work apart and make it recognizable.
His works is held in personal and corporate collections including Aquila Networks Canada.