An emerging visual artist living in Bonavista, Newfoundland, Canada, Barbara Houston enlists materials + mediums; linen, cotton canvas, torrefied maple, paper with oil, acrylic, sepia ink, Japanese graphite, steel, reclaimed materials to create place-based conceptual sculptures, paintings + drawings.

Houston’s work is intended to evoke the viewer’s memory of place, with colour and beauty in positive space, while leaving the viewer to contemplate and complete negative space in the materials that are imbued with meaning. Houston draws not only on the beautiful natural images that surround her in Newfoundland but her works acts as an observational contemplation, a personal novel that captures the place where she lives and works.

She grew up in Saskatchewan where she was influenced by Modernist Prairie art, sculpture and landscape painting that expressed a sense of place and belonging. She studied at New York’s Parsons School of Design; she also holds a degree in Environmental Studies and a Master of Architecture from the University of Manitoba. After stepping away from a successful, award winning architectural/design practice in Vancouver, British Columbia, Houston made a cross-country road trip, recognizing that it was time to reinvent herself, searching out a long nourished motivation for expression through art. That journey took her to Newfoundland and in 2019 she settled in Bonavista where she established the BarbaraHouston ArtStudio. In 2022 she designed an innovative Southcott Award winning residence and studio where she now lives and works full time.

Houston’s education and life experience have given her a deep contextual appreciation for her environs. Keen informed observation and a widely varied skill set imbue her place-based sculpture, paintings and drawings with a fluidity of scale that is at once both intimate and far-reaching, rural and global.

Her work is held in private collections in North America and Europe.