Today we’d like to introduce you to Elizabeth Barlow.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?

My late father, Philip Barlow, was a noted artist and he was my first inspiration and teacher. My mother is a passionate gardener and our family home was surrounded by her beautiful garden. However, it wasn’t until recently that these two influences fused together in my art.

While working my “day job” in the performing arts, I followed my father’s inspiration back to painting. I continued my arts education at UC Berkeley Extension, where I studied drawing and painting with Donald Bradford and others, earning a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate with Distinction in Visual Arts. In 2007 I studied in New York City at the Art Students League.

My paintings at this time reflected our bustling cosmopolitan lives in the city. I developed a series of paintings called Portraits in Absentia, in which I used my subjects’ belongings to create their portraits. My Portraits in Absentia paintings included golf balls, stilettos, lipsticks, opera scores, ballet pointe shoes and footballs. I loved every minute of exploring my subjects’ lives through their belongings; it was a kind of archeology in paint.

Then in 2016, we moved to Carmel-by-the- Sea, a place we both knew and loved. and my art practice was transformed. My San Francisco world of opera, ballet and the hottest new restaurants was replaced by ocean mists, twisting cypresses, falling asleep to the sound of the sea and year-round flowers. Almost immediately, I felt called to use flowers as my subjects, and so I began my Flora Portraits series. Each flower I paint is a powerful individual presence to me and I try to evoke its inner essence and keep alive forever the messages it offers to the world.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?

The journey of art-making is never a smooth road — the twists and turns, up and downs are all important parts of the creative journey. The “struggles” are as important as the moments of sudden luck or flashes of inspiration. When I was a younger artist, I would sometimes despair when a painting wasn’t going well. There were times I destroyed a painting because I was stuck and couldn’t see a way forward. But over time I’ve learned that there is no such thing as a failed painting. Since I paint in oils, I can always edit and adjust the painting. So now if I am at an impasse, I don’t panic like I used to. I know that if I slow down, take time to look at the painting calmly over several days or weeks, then I will eventually see a new way forward. Sometimes I will repaint a section of the panting 4 or 5 times and each time I learn something that takes me a bit closer to where the painting needs to be. I have learned to trust my inner eye.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?

I am an oil painter and my studio is in a beautiful 120-year-old church in the center of our town.

I paint hyperrealistic flowers in an exaggerated scale to create icons that symbolize the transformational power of nature’s beauty.

I treasure this quote from Rilke: “Learn to fathom what a flower infers.” Flowers are messengers that use their beauty to awaken us from the slumber of our “busyness.” In our busy lives, it’s all too easy to walk past a bed of flowers and see only a mass of color, all the while thinking of our to-do lists or the latest political scandal. But if we allow ourselves to be tempted by beauty, we will stop and in that pause, we will breathe more slowly and become truly present to the world around us. When we stop for beauty, we build our awareness “muscle” and seeing beauty becomes easier. Suddenly, it is everywhere around us and our days are suffused with an infinite capacity for wonder.

I pay attention to beauty and I celebrate it in my paintings. Painting flowers (and my daily meditation practice) awakened me from the deep sleep of “doing” (to-do’s, must-do’s) into the miraculous world of being.

What’s next?

I am busy working in the studio every day on commissions and an upcoming exhibition at Andra Norris Gallery in Burlingame. My 2025 painting schedule is completely filled up. At this very moment, I am working on a giant commission of five roses — each rose is twice the size of my head! My heart leaps every morning when I walk in the studio and see the painting. I am also in early discussions about creating a series of paintings for a sacred space — this has long been a dream of mine — so stay tuned!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.elizabethbarlowart.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elizabethbarlowartist/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elizabeth.barlow2
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@elizabethbarlow7525

Image Credits

Rick Pharaoh
Tiffany Walker