Proposal for Dickson Gallery, McColl Center

The Fallen (working title)

For the past decade, my work has been consumed by fires, crowds, and threatened habitats. Lately, I have been thinking about extinctions, both past and future.

For the Dickson Gallery, I am proposing an exhibition of paintings on cut paper tentatively titled The Fallen.

My paintings have long focused on environmental issues, particularly how rampant residential development encroaches on native habitats and displaces wildlife. For many years, my paintings featured small suburban homes often surrounded by the animals they had driven out. But recently, my work has become less narrative, more atmospheric, and perhaps more ominous.

My current paintings include depictions of birds falling out of the sky, feral cats, extinct animals, and other creatures that have been left to fend for themselves. They are often surrounded by vegetation, some of it based on plants in my own, wild garden. These paintings are done on papers cut into flames, ovals, oak leaves, and other shapes. All are acrylic on paper. The process is painstaking; the entire body of work, down to the finest lines, is executed entirely with paintbrushes.

Exhibition

This exhibition will consist of individual works with framed dimensions of up to 28x36” each, assorted groupings of smaller works with framed dimensions under 10x10” each, and a wall installation of 60-75 small unframed pieces in the shape of oak leaves.

All framed works will be ready to hang. These typically sell for $400-4,000.

The method for hanging the unframed pieces in the installation is TBD; these pieces can be sold individually, with prices TBD.

I will be available for a gallery talk or an “in conversation” event.

For more images and information, visit barbaraschreiber.com.

Sample Images

Bio

Barbara Schreiber’s works on paper appear lighthearted at first glance, but often have disturbing undertones.

Born in Baltimore MD, Schreiber was a Cold War baby. Her aesthetic was formed in part by dinner-table discussions of political brinksmanship, her upbringing in a gritty town, and the solace she found gazing at tiny, enameled antiquities at the Walters Art Museum and four small Cézanne paintings of Mt. St. Victoire at the Baltimore Museum of Art.

Schreiber’s exhibitions include the High Museum of Art, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, PS 1, SPACE Pittsburgh, the Weatherspoon Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, Telfair Museum of Art, Mint Museum of Art, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the Sorbonne, and numerous other spaces. She has completed residencies at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Hambidge Center, McColl Center, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, and Goodyear Arts.

In addition to her work as an artist, Schreiber can sometimes be pestered into writing about visual art. Her articles, essays, reviews, and navel staring have appeared in Art Papers, Sculpture, Metalsmith, Creative Loafing Charlotte, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Charlotte Observer, and other publications. She was an associate editor of Art Papers for ten years.

Schreiber attended Atlanta College of Art and received her BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art. She currently lives in Charlotte NC.

Schreiber’s work is filled with animals that sometimes serve as stand-ins for humans. In particular, she identifies with small, wild ones—adorable, understood by few, and ultimately alone in a complex, fast-moving world.