Despite its diversity and its profusion, his work reveals a profound unity in its writing, which materializes in his preference for diagonal axes, for compositions showing fragile equilibrium and in his spatiotemporal approach to the visual world. Barbeau thus expresses his fascination for movement as a bearer of desire and of time measure. He also stands out for the symbolic dimension and irony that translate from the title of his purest abstractions. As a "baroque" artist, his work falls within a fusional approach to artistic creation, while revealing his search for formal perfection and plastic equilibrium. Economy of means and aesthetic perfection being of great concern for him, Barbeau still needs to express emotions in an elated way and refers to the unconscious, even in his paintings, let them be optical, geometrical, minimalist or serial. Thus, his work reveals itself as a permanent and utopian quest in reaching the synthesis of opposites.