Susan Barbour

My training in the visual arts began on both sides of the easel. While working as an artists' model and learning to draw the figure at a studio in New York City, I experienced pareidolia, or the tendency to see patterns in randomness. One day while taking a shower fallen pieces of hair came loose in my hand, and when I smeared them on the wall I saw the clear image of a woman's head. With a few strokes of my hands the rest of her body soon appeared. And so she began my private drawing practice. My hair drawings and prints have been exhibited in galleries in Los Angeles and Italy and have been acquired by private collectors in New York, L.A., Stockholm, and Rome.My poetry and essays have been published in journals including The Paris Review, Oxford Poetry, Catapult, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and the Review of English Studies, among many others. I currently divide my time between L.A., New York, and Italy.

Ph.D. English Literature, University of Oxford
M.F.A. Johns Hopkins University
B.A. Dartmouth College

ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE

2020 Castello Potentino, Seggiano, Italy
2019 The Siena Art Institute, Siena, Italy
2017 The Institute for Art and Olfaction, Los Angeles, CA
2016 The Jentel Arts Residency, Banner, WY
2015 The Dora Maar House/Brown Foundation, Ménerbes, FRANCE

ART EXHIBITIONS

2022

Solo Exhibition. I Smell Human, PioneerWorks, Brooklyn, NY

2019

Solo Exhibition. A Woman on Paper, Spring Studio, New York, NY

Solo Exhibition. Bagni d’Arte, The Siena Art Institute, Siena, ITALY

Two-Person Exhibition. Profumo: A Pairing of Chords and Accords. Scented concert with composer Richard Festinger. Los Angeles, CA [forthcoming]

2018

PEEP! Circus of Books. Los Angeles, CA

Curatorial Hub Holiday Pop-Up Show. Helms Design Center. Los Angeles, CA

2017

Doing Easy. Drawings and installation. Outposts Projects. Joshua Tree, CA

Solo Exhibition. Shhhhh…your pheromones are talking! The Institute for Art and Olfaction. Los Angeles, CA

COLLECTIONS

Ed Ruscha, Los Angeles, CA