Moving Upstream Painting

Sharon Zappha Barfoot’s work reevaluates traditional materials and media with iconoclastic method. Gestural expression and the nature of the medium itself holds the most importance in her abstract paintings. She works to reveal intrinsic connections between external reality and what resides within the imagination. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally, and most recently in Islamabad Pakistan, Mexico and Kyoto Japan. She is a past recipient of both a Canada Council grant and an Ontario Arts Council grant for her work in the arts. Sharon Barfoot’s passion for arts have been fueled by over 35 years of working as a curator, publisher, artist, trainer, lecturer and as a designer in professional theater. She is an abstract painter and printmaker residing in rural Ontario, Canada. "Seeing what isn’t seen, or at least seeing things differently than they have been seen before is fundamentally what sends me to my easel. I am moved and intrigued by a decayed surface, weathered rocks resting at the bottom of a river bed and an unspoken thought that has the power to change the course of one’s life; these are the things that move me to paint."