CAROL BARSHA

About the Artist

Carol Barsha is an artist whose primary media are paint, ink, pastel, and charcoal. She applies these media in spontaneous, gestural strokes as well as in smooth layers. Her symbolic, often surreal drawings and paintings on paper are influenced by observations from nature as well as imagined phenomena. The basic elements of the world; water, air, earth and fire, as well as a curiosity about the human condition, pervade her work. Ms. Barsha has exhibited at venues such as the Art Institute of Boston, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Katzen Museum of American University, Maryland Institute College of Art, McLean Project for the Arts, Chatauqua Exhibition of Contemporary Art and an installation at The Whitney Biennial. In Washington DC, she has exhibited with Gallery K, and Gallery Neptune and Brown. She has also exhibited internationally through the Arts in Embassies Program and at The National Endowment for the Arts. Jerry Saltz of New York Magazine has described her painting as containing “real magic and charismatic mystery.” In 2018 she was a Visiting Artist at The American Academy in Rome and a Resident Artist at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Ms. Barsha was a Bethesda Paintings Award semi-finalist in 2017 and received an Individual Artist Award in Painting from the Maryland State Arts Council in 2016. In 2015 she was a semi-finalist for a mosaic mural commission for Washington DC Public Schools. In 2010 she was awarded a residency at Soaring Gardens Artist Retreat in Pennsylvania and was a Creative Artist Public Service Awards semi-finalist in New York in 1983. Ms. Barsha’s work is in the collection of The New Hall Art Collection of Murray Edwards College, Cambridge University in the U.K., the Federal Reserve Board in Washington D.C., the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD, Inova Schar Cancer Cente in Fairfax, VA, The Virginia Hospital in Culpepper, VA and The Permanent Art Collection of the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital and in numerous private collections worldwide. Her work has been favorably reviewed and recognized by The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, Where/Washington, Articulate and in publications of The Bronx Museum of the Arts, The Federal Reserve Board, The Westchester Arts Council and The National Jewish Museum. Ms. Barsha has lectured and taught for over thirty years at schools and universities. She was a Teaching Fellow at Boston University and held teaching positions at The Art Institute of Boston, Regis College and Maryland Institute College of Art among many others. She earned a BFA Cum Laude and an MFA in Painting from Boston University College of Fine Arts where she studied with Philip Guston.