“My work is a confluence of color and movement. I strive to expand people’s horizons and bring them together in recognizable contexts. I like to change my images and subject matter and to experiment with different styles after completely exploring a subject. In my latest series “Dancer’s Palette” a series of 50 paintings, I explore the fusion of color and movement using the dynamism, flight and flow of the ballet trained body. Because I was a dancer, I can feel the movement and range of what is possible when I paint. Movement and color have energy and together create a high vibration that is impactful on the subconscious. Always the figures are anonymous and slightly obscured. I lay down multiple layers of color, sometimes painting wet into wet in acrylic and mediums by dragging the paint with large palette knives to move the color. Figurative elements are drawn in a choreographic pattern as if you are viewing the evolution of a modern ballet on the stage, eyes searching the canvas. The paintings are in flux until I feel they are complete. More color is applied to the negative space. Then the process repeats building up a smooth layer of color. I’m interested in capturing energetic moments and vibrancy.”
Barbi Leifert has been painting since childhood. Her first artwork sold to a collector when she was nine. She studied dance intensely and after
years of performing dance, experimental theatre and writing about dance, returned to painting. Her work is shown in major cities around the world.
