The natural world is what thrills me: sky, land, the watery places, and creatures that fly. The bone-crushing beauty of life. My twenty-one years in the Southwest, infused my vision with a sense of scale I had not experienced growing up on the East Coast. In my paintings, I lay down layers and layers of color, opaque and translucent, to build up the surface with texture and stroke, and to create luminous images. I want to record the scars that happen to everything and everyone as we walk through our time in the physical world. Recent work invokes the great immensity we inhabit, and our minuscule, exquisite place in it.
New work on paper. 54″x60″
“Flicker/Night & Day” From the Land of Enchantment series. Approx 54×60. mm on Arches paper © 2018 Barbara Mayfield
Life in the Canyon, from the Land of Enchantment series. Approx 54×60 mm on Arches paper ©2018 Barbara Mayfield
A Walk in the Woods series, 16×16 o/handmade paper. ©2018 Barbara Mayfield
A Walk in the Woods, 16×16 o/handmade paper. ©2018 Barbara Mayfield
A Walk in the Woods, 16×16 o/handmade paper. ©2018 Barbara Mayfield
The Garden Gate Birds, 26×24 o/c. From the series My Pennsylvania Garden. ©Barbara Mayfield 2017
The Lupine Came Up 26×24 o/c. From the series My Pennsylvania Garden. ©Barbara Mayfield 2017
Birds By the Stream 26×24 o/c. From the series My Pennsylvania Garden. ©Barbara Mayfield 2017
“I Grew Flax This Year” 26×24 o/c. From the series My Pennsylvania Garden. ©Barbara Mayfield 2017
Sweethearts, 12’x12′ oil on panel, ©Barbara Mayfield 2017
Tall Trees, 12’x12′ oil on handmade paper on panel, ©Barbara Mayfield 2017
Paint and Color 