Barry was born in Castel, Guernsey in 1948. When he was six years old he moved to England and has been residing in the UK ever since. As a small boy Barry remembers standing at the kitchen table painting, at other times he could be found creating small sculpture pieces from plasticine. He remembers as a young lad at school, during his lunch hour, spending his time looking at the collection of 18th Century paintings and drawings in the Smith Art Gallery, Brighouse. He was particularly fascinated with the rich detailed work of such artists as Atkinson Grimshaw who painted 'The Mossy Glen', Giuseppi Constantini the artist who painted 'An Italian Village School' and the Thomas Cooper painting, 'War and Peace'.

When he wasn't in the gallery he could be found in the library scanning through the volumes of art books on painting and drawing. Even at such an early age Barry knew that he wanted to be a painter. At the age of eleven he was encouraged to enter a national painting competition. No one was more surprised than Barry when news came that he had won the competition with his painting of a teapot, which gained him the gold and silver medal prizes. As a young boy Barry in particular remembers visiting the busy Rochester market in Kent in the early 1960s where he produced a number of sketches of the market stalls and the shoppers going to and fro - which is a subject of long interest to Barry: the busyness of the human arena.

In 1976 he devoted himself fully to becoming a painter. Studying the old masters and making copies of their work gave him a good grounding and helped him to develop a measure of experience in learning various drawing styles and techniques. He was influenced by such artists as Rembrandt, Rubens, Titian, Michael Angelo, Bernini, Caravaggio, Gainsborough, Constable and Cotman. Barry believes that all these artists and many more besides taught him some aspect of either drawing or painting. He says: "I've copied a great deal either from the primary source or secondary source. I didn't mind standing in a gallery copying a painting." In 1983 Barry was deeply influenced by the French Impressionist painters who made a great impact on his development as a painter. "I believe the Impressionists taught me how to see properly", he says, "it was like receiving a new pair of eyes, which I think someone else once said ... anyway, it happened to me."

By 2000 Barry felt stuck in a rut with his painting. As a self taught artist he was successfully receiving commissions and holding exhibitions, yet he felt as though his work wasn't developing. He needed new inspiration and needed to meet other artists and find out what was happening in the art world. He consequently enrolled on an Art and Design course at Halifax College where he was encouraged by tutors and artists such as Peter Stanyer, Steve Brackwell and Chris Bland.

It was here at college where Barry took on a different approach to drawing and painting, and this was in the area of expressionism. He recalls how: "It was wonderful to be able to learn to respond to the subject, allowing a personal emotional reaction to the subject to drive me on." Through spontaneity and intuitiveness Barry was able to create something new from the given subject. Upon gaining his first art qualification, Halifax College invited Barry to present one of his paintings to Prince Andrew who came to open the college's new Art Centre.

From Halifax College Barry progressed to do a Fine Arts degree at Bradford College of Art gaining a BA (Hons) in 2006. After this he obtained a teaching certificate from Huddersfield University, and for a season taught art classes for East Lancashire Adult Education. Barry has also taught drawing and painting in a voluntary capacity to adults at Todmorden College in West Yorkshire. Barry now works from his studio in Huddersfield, and has just published his first book entitled: From the Academies to the Rising Sun: The Influence of Japanese Art on the Later Work of Degas and Van Gogh.