News Release

New Mexico Artist Barbara Coleman Participates in December's Florence Bienalle

Barbara Coleman is an invited guest of the Italian government for the 2005 Florence Biennale where she will exhibit three of her landscape paintings.

The Florence Biennale, December 3 rd through the 11 th , is the fifth in a series. It is an official participant in the program "Dialogue Among Nations." UN Secretary General Kofi Annan wrote in support of the program, "I believe that dialogue is an opportunity for people who come from diverse cultures and traditions to know each other better whether they live on opposite sides of the world or on the same street."

Barbara Coleman has a Master's degree in community and regional planning from the school of architecture and planning at the University of New Mexico . Her work has been exhibited throughout the U.S. and is included in a wide range of corporate and private collections.

Coleman's work is instantly recognizable by its rich palette and color-saturated portrayal of the Southwestern landscape. She takes the long view, and her paintings encompass land and water forms, from fields of native growth in the foregrounds to mountains, ridges and buttes farther back. Alchemy is achieved in her paintings through the blending of obedience to rigorous laws of perspective with the exuberant and generous use of color.

Quoting from her artist's statement: "How you see is what you see," a teacher once said to me. I have held onto these words for many years. For me, painting is a call to undo conventional thinking and ways of seeing. It has allowed me to become freshly aware of my experiences and surroundings. In awestruck moments of being present, the world presents itself as a profound, unbroken continuity of energy, colors and shapes – not just separate, ordinary things. It is in these moments of focus and awareness that I feel most inspired and in touch with my work. Some of my most profound life experiences have unfolded in silent communion with my painting, thinking with my paintbrushes in hand. The joy and challenge comes for me in interpreting the landscape and painting the richness of the shadows and the vibrancy of the light. I find that the yellows keep getting yellower and the blues bluer as I continue to try to free up the brush and let go.

She submitted"Wildflowers," "Evening Glow on the Chama" and "Chama Flowing."