Reception: 6-10pm at Streamline Salon
3560 Taraval St at 46th, SF
Through June 9
Closing party at Streamline May 27,
6:30-9pm,
and gallery open during Streamline
hours 8am-3pm
“Heads” is Leigh Barbier’s fifth exhibition hosted by Gallery 60SIX. This solo show of expressionistic portraits will be held in the side art gallery called Streamline Salon, within 60SIX painter Brent Willson's new sunset district cafe establishment, Streamline.
As in her last solo exhibition, Barbier continues exploration of the portrait. Her “Heads” are reminiscent of the portraits of Alexej von Jawlensky, the German expressionist painter who borrowed from primitive art in his abstracted faces. Barbier’s “heads” are archetypal, even cubist and tribal. Her background in surrealist, theatrical mask making for the group “The Residents” and her interest in Mexican murals, African art and medieval art are found in her singular iconography.
Where cubism reveals an underlying geometry and structure of the physicality of the object, these heads reveal the inner psyche and run the gamut of human archetypes, including a portrait called “Jesus.”
Barbier says of her work: “For me, making drawings, paintings and sculpture is a simple and direct process of giving emotions form. This compulsion, along with my over-active imagination that perceives peril around every corner, drives my image making.”
