Carol Barsha
Within My Meadow

In her first solo exhibition with the gallery, Carol Barsha introduces a series of large-scale, multi-media works that unearth and explore the complexities of the natural world. Inspired by her surroundings as well as the philosophies of her mentor, Philip Guston, Barsha combines a deep knowledge of florae and classical painting with a style that is larger than life. “With Nature as my subject” she says, “I am allowed to create a new world where there are no rules of perspective and proportion.”
In Barsha’s no-rules world it is not uncommon to find two environmentally dissimilar florae sharing the same plane, or a Songbird sitting on a Zinnia bud three times its size. Her expansion of the possibilities of nature is not experimental, but rather a celebration of the natural world as a series of

infinitely connected parts. By animating her subjects Barsha instills in them an autonomy that is rarely granted to nature, while faithfully rendering the minute details of their anatomy. Once an exclusive oil painter, Barsha now prefers watercolor, ink, pastel, and charcoal on paper-- an appropriate solution to her “preference for loose and delicate painting.” Employing a distinctive palette alongside such an array of media, she is able to intimately capture the underappreciated nuances of her subject.
Carol Barsha has exhibited at the Art Institute of Boston, Maryland Institute College of Art, Bronx Museum of Art, and most recently the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center. She has had numerous public art commissions, and is currently in the permanent collections of the Federal Reserve in Washington, DC, and Murray Edwards College at Cambridge University, among others.