Bio
Lucy Barber received her MFA in painting and drawing from Brooklyn College City University of New York, and a BFA with a concentration in photography from The Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.
Barber has been making art and painting and drawing for 50+ years, has exhibited nationally since the early 1980’s, and has exhibited internationally in Italy as well as in the American Embassy in Nicosia, Greece through the US Dept. of State’s Art In Embassies Program.
Barber’s work has been reviewed in notable press such as The New York Times, The New York Sun, Philadelphia Inquirer, Art New England, Maine Sunday Telegram, among others.
For her studio painting and drawing Barber has received numerous awards including two Halo Arts Fellowship grants, and two Pollock-Krasner Foundation grants; she was awarded the Grumbacher Award & Gold Medal at the 169th Annual Exhibition at the National Academy of Design in NYC; received two grants from the Maine Arts Commission, as well as several research grants from Bowdoin College including a travel grant to paint in Italy.
Lucy has taught at art colleges such as Pratt Institute, Rhode Island School of Design, and Maine College of Art and the Ringling College of Art & Design. In addition Barber has taught at esteemed colleges such as The College of William & Mary and Bowdoin College, and continues to teach students of all age levels online, privately and in studio workshops as well as classes in educational venues.
Lucy Barber's work is in corporate and private collections, including the United States Department of State, as well as in museums.
Statement
I’m a perceptual painter; my work has always been grounded in realism though the seeing and painting and making my work is very much an abstract process involving all the senses, experience, memory and imagination. My subject is landscape and still life painted in oils, primarily medium sized works.
Early on, inspired by thinking that objects for still life were like figures on a stage, I would imagine they were literally “alive” and so arranged objects in corners of boxes for that purpose. What evolved over time out of this idea of objects being alive with energy is the idea of “presence ” that can be embodied in the stillness of things. including a “sense of place” in landscape and the stillness of figures. This is deeply connected to my process of seeing.
Through the process of seeing it is important to understand where things are positioned relative to each other and relative to the space of the painting, the composition, because for me it’s all about relationships of one thing to another; shapes, color, light. This is a greater metaphor for what it means to be an artist and a human being, that everything is about relationship. My work is about that too, about transforming the experience of seeing and being in the world and letting that travel to the canvas using paint and color.
My work is about an artist’s experience of seeing and being in the world and letting that transformation travel to the canvas; a refuge for myself and for the viewer.