Irene Barberis is an Australian artist based in Melbourne and London. She is a painter working also with installation, drawing, and new media art.
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Barberis was born in Chiswick, England in 1953 and moved to Australia in 1956.[1] She completed an MFA at the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne University in 1994 and a PhD on "Abstract and Figurative Elements of the Apocalypse and its Representations" in 2000 . She is a Senior lecturer at the RMIT University School of Art and lectures in painting in the off shore School of Art program in Hong Kong, at the Hong Kong Art School.
In early 2005 she founded Metasenta an international research satellite, based initially at RMIT University in Melbourne.[2] She has been director of its hubs and projects since this time. Her work with Metasenta has included initiating international art projects, exhibitions, publications and films. She is founder and director of the mobile gallery, The DrawingSpace, Melbourne, an extension of her 2004 Public Arts Commission, A Kineaesthetic Experience: 10 Works which utilised dormant spaces around Frankston, Victoria. The first Gallery is currently situated in RMIT University, with two new international partners opening in early 2010. Barberis has published widely, collaborating internationally with Artists and Universities; her latest three volumes through RMIT Publishing and Metasenta Publishing include, 'The Chicago Project', Volumes 1&2 [ribabookshops.com], Across the Gulf: Bahrain, Dubai and Abu Dhabi" [1] with pending volumes, "Moving Cultures: Guangzhou- Tibet 2009", "Australian Drawing 2010" and the 'Small Books Series" 2010 [www.metasenta.com.au]. Irene Barberis has recently curated a large survey exhibition "Across the Gulf; Bahrain Dubai and Abu Dhabi: 22 Artistis" [2] for the 2009 Arc Biennial Brisbane [3].
Barberis has been making art since the 1970s and was a post graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts, winning the Keith and Elizabeth Murdoch Travelling Fellowship in 1979.[3] She gradually adopted Biblical subject matter in her work.[4] She has exhibited internationally since the 1980s. In 2005, she initiated and was part of the exhibition "Intersections: Reading the Space" at the Jewish Museum of Australia,[4] which was exhibited in 2005 at the Contemporary Jewish Museum of San Francisco.[5]Current exhibitions include "Trancentric" [4], Lethaby Gallery, London; "The Agency of Words", Text Festival 2009, Bury Museum and Art Gallery, Manchester, UK [5], "Apocalypse; Seven Histories into Futures", Arc Biennial 2009, Brisbane, Australia[6] 'Tapestry of Light; Project 3 Victorian Tapestry Workshop, Melbourne, Australia [7].
Her work is held in many collections worldwide, some of which are the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria.[1] and the Sol LeWitt Collection USA.[6]