Dr Irene Barberis is an artist and founding Director of Metasenta ® Pty. Ltd, an international arts research 'satellite' which functions internationally between universities, arts organisations, galleries and artists. She has initiated many international arts projects in collaboration with artists and institutions across Australia, UK, USA, the Middle East and the Far East curating and exhibiting major exhibitions.
Born in London, Irene holds a PhD from Victoria University, Melbourne, and a Master of Arts from the University of Melbourne, VCA. She Co Directs the contemporary Australian gallery Langford120, and is Director of the Global Centre for Drawing, As a painter, installation and new media artist, she has held over fifty solo exhibitions in Australia and abroad and participated in over ninety group exhibitions. Her work is held in many public and private collections including the Sol Lewitt Collection, New York, the National Gallery of Victoria, the Bury Museum and Art Gallery, Manchester, UK.
Irene also works in Public Art and has completed and won large commissions both in Australia and in the UK. She founded Metasenta ® Publications in 2011 and works with international artists, architects, authors and designers producing the well known 'Metasenta Small Book Series".
She is the Chair of The Metasenta Foundation, which initiates projects and collaborations for Australian artists globally.
Barberis has been making art since the mid 1970s, exhibiting internationally since 1980. She was invited by Sol LeWitt to draw his wall work at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1977. He became her mentor and they remained friends till his death in 2007.
Her investigations into eschatological subject matter in one lineage of her work, culminated in the major artwork, "The Tapestry of Light: Intersections of Illumination" in 2017, which was exhibited at the Brussels Cathedral and at Canterbury Cathedral,UK in 2017. Over 14,500 visitors viewed the tapestry during it's six weeks at the Canterbury Cathedral Chapter House.
The 'Tapestry of Light Project' opens at the Museum of the Bible in Washington DC. in July 2019. Barberis is one of the only female artists to complete a full cycle of the Apocalypse. Emerita Professor Michelle.P. Brown (University of London) is the International Curator of the Tapestry of Light Project. Professor David Mainwaring (Swinburne University) is the inventor of the Nano particle science in the Tapestry of Light's phosphorescent threads.
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.[9]
Other exhibitions include "Trancentric," London, 2008,[10] "The Agency of Words" Lethaby Gallery, London, Text Festival 2009, Bury Museum and Art Gallery, Manchester, UK, "Apocalypse; Seven Histories into Futures", Arc Biennial 2009, Brisbane, Australia, 'Lines of Thinking, Langford120 in 2011, and Apocalypse/Revelation: Re Looking, 2012.
She takes up two prestigious residencies in the USA and Italy in 2019, with exhibitions and lectures in NY City and in Europe. [4]
Gallery Langford120 and this website have the full list of her exhibitions and projects, including her curatorial, published works, essays, images, CV and full biography.
ESSAYS:
[read Studio International review]
[view Catalogue List]
[view 'Apocalypse/Revelation: Re Looking' Exhibition Catalogue]
[read 'Edge of Logic' by Virginia Fraser, interview with Irene Barberis]
[read 'Faithfully Female' by Natalie King]
[read 'Seeing through the Material' by Dr. Wilma Tabacco]
[read 'Plastique' by Anna Clabburn]
Directorships:
Founder and Director: Metasenta® International Research Centre
Co-director: Gallery Langford 120
Chair and CEO: The Metasenta Foundation
Founder and Director: the Global Centre for Drawing
Director: Metasenta Publications
Editorials
Executive Editior: Metasenta Publications
Editioral Board Cepaos Centre For Arts And Culture Brazil