Karen Barbour (b. 1956, San Francisco CA) lives and works in Inverness, CA. Her maximilist paintings and drawings are populated by figures and imaginary landscapes comprised of bold colors and intricate passages made with an assortment of details such as dots, shapes, and patterns. Barbour's works often include discrete passages of mixed media elements adhered to their surfaces, adding texture and depth. Consistently mining her own oeuvre by reworking, revising, and layering imagery, Barbour develops paintings over a long period of time, and with a distinctively intuitive approach. The resulting works are vibrant and sensorially rich with an acute attention to detail.
Barbour earned her BFA from the University of California at Davis in 1978 and her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1981. She has had solo exhibitions at Moon Grove, Manchester UK (2024); Harkawik, Los Angeles, CA (2024); Jack Hanley, New York, NY (2023); Jack Hanley, San Francisco, CA (2005; 2000); amongst others.
She has been included in group exhibitions at Post Times, New York, NY (2025); Harkawik, Los Angeles, CA (2023); White Columns, New York, NY (2022); Watari Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Japan (2022); Museum of Contemporary Art, Rome Italy (2001); Anthony Meier Fine Arts, San Francisco, CA (1997); Shiseido Ginza Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (1995); amongst others.
