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Barbara Bear Jamison

“I enjoy taking my easel on location and painting the beautiful light that reflects off of flowers, trees and buildings.  The immediacy of moving light across a scene makes for quick decisions about color and shape, and is a wonderful way to capture the beauty of a location. There are so many decisions made in each painting, that each one is a practice for the next.”

Barbara Jamison is an award-winning artist who enjoys painting both en plein air and in the studio. Working primarily in oil and gouache, painting en plein air allows her to see colors that can only be observed outdoors, and that experience also enlivens her studio paintings. Her colorful and impressionistic paintings depict subjects such as marsh landscapes, flowers, city scenes and dogs. Jamison says that each of her paintings is a captured moment that represents a full story.

“I am inspired by the colors created by lights and darks of a scene in nature, in cities and in my studio.  Putting objects or flowers in glass bowls and vases and lighting them with a strong lamp creates beautiful color changes.”

A fourth generation Wilmingtonian, Jamison began painting in Wilmington’s Post Office Alley at the age of 10, where she took lessons from Hester Donnelly. She continued those lessons with Donnelly and Saant Celia at St. John’s Museum of Art, and went on to major in art education at UNC Chapel Hill.