ABOUT

ABOUT BARBARA PEARN

Barbara Pearn was born in Stratford, Ontario and grew up on a farm near Fullerton. Barbara took up watercolours as a teenager and early sales encouraged her to keep painting.

Barbara is inspired to paint historic buildings and local farms. She enjoys capturing rural life in Ontario which reminds her of her own farm upbringing. Painting barns, is a way of documenting the disappearing lifestyle of rural Ontario.

Barbara is a graduate of Conestoga College’s Graphic Arts and Advertising Design program. She worked as a graphic designer for 15 years in Toronto at a variety of graphic design studios and national retailers’ marketing departments.

Barbara began her own successful graphic design business ColourPix, in 1998. Her graphic design work helped fine tune her colour knowledge and composition skills. In 2005 she began publishing The Art Map, an annual guide showcasing regional artists, art galleries and art shows, until 2020.

Barbara experimented briefly with acrylics in the late 1990s, then changed to oils. She enjoys the rich colour and textures that can be achieved with oil paint. She prefers painting on wood panels, enjoying the hard paint surface.

She has participated in many local art shows in Grey and Bruce and is an active member of the local arts community. She is currently represented by the Matilda Swanson Gallery in Clarksburg and Garage 13 in Eugenia. She is currently a member of the Blue Mountain Foundation of the arts, in Collingwood.

Barbara wrote Building the Eugenia Power House and Hydro Dam 1914-1915, a book about local history, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Eugenia Power Station.

Her paintings are in private collections in Canada, United States as well as in England.

She currently lives in Grey County.