New York City, New York - PAULA BARR is an artist based in New York City and raised in Mobile, Alabama. Her paintings and photographs have been exhibited world wide. Her works are found in the collections of: the Museum of Modern Art, Smithsonian, Chase Manhattan Bank, Brooklyn Museum, Los Angeles Institute, Cincinatti Museum, New York State Museum, New York Public Library, Fine Arts Museum of the South, the International Photography Museum among many others.

As an invited

Fishing Pier                  Biloxi, MS 2008

artist to the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting 2008, Davos, Switzerland, she presented stunning murals depicting the culture and indigenous lifestyle found pre Hurricane Katrina (1977-1995) and post Hurricane Katrina (2005) of her beloved Gulf Coast Region.

Now, with the horrendous oil spill (2010) she is returning to her roots to capture the odyssey of the indigenous culture that has been washed away.  Her images have been called "talking pictures" that represent the lives of those on the bleeding edge of the conflict. 

She lives in New York City with her son. BARR is at work on a visual essay and exhibition, Gulf Coast Echo, Our Moral Compass.


PAULA BARR was reared in Mobile, Alabama, where her roots still run deep.  She completed her art studies at Boston University and established herself as an artist in New York City while still a young woman. 

In the mid-1990s BARR spent 18 months commuting to the Gulf Coast for an art

Private Swimming Pool         Pass Christian, MS 2008

commission at the Mobile Infirmary Medical Center, producing a 74-foot long photo mural celebrating the local geography; it is still the largest photograph in the world and the first to be made with archival glass tiles of her own invention.

Raised in a Jewish household during the Civil Rights era of the 1960s, BARR can identify with the people neglected and displaced by Hurricane Katrina and the recent oil spill's travesty.

Her photographic goal now is to keep alive the memory of a world-famous regional culture and lifestyle that has been wiped out.

Bathroom New Orleans, LA. 2008

 

On the Corner of Desire Ninth Ward, New Orleans 2008