My practice is about exploring my past and present to develop a visual language for flesh. Bodies, and the expression of my own body and sexuality, are central to my work and how I connect to my content. I love the demanding immediacy of life drawing, a part of my artistic practice that I share with the model. It is a conversation with someone who is speaking with their body, and I use my body to express my side of the conversation through mark-making. I follow the posthumous advice of Milton Glaser, who advises moving toward what you don’t know. Take yourself out of your expertise and put yourself where there’s a sense of jeopardy.
“In the paintings by Barbara Herzfeld colour becomes the primary force through which emotional energy is transmitted. Her compositions appear rough and spontaneous, with their subtle gradations of pinks, blues, greens, and yellows they transform the human figure into an almost magical, surreal presence. The bodies seem to breathe with vitality, their contours and rhythmic dots creating a sense of movement and transformation. Unusual poses give the portrayed the appearance of being captured in a mysterious dance or just suspended between reality and imagination.
The artist’s signature luminous colours and delicate interplay of shadows allow reclining and seated bodies to emerge with extraordinary vividness. Far removed from conventional beauty standards they embody a beauty of their own — one that arises from within, perhaps from a sense of joy, self-acceptance, resilience and the ability to draw strength from one’s inner vitality. Her works recall the emotional intensity of Expressionist painting, e.g. the style reminiscent of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner where colour is not merely descriptive but becomes a language of feeling and psychological states.” Text: Dr. Lily Fürstenow…Berlin, Germany 2023
“Barbara Herzfeld’s bodies on the other hand some with stark black contours, others rendered in vigorous tones are intriguingly dynamic. They have something in common with expressionistic energy reminiscent of Egon Schiele yet filled with special attention to detail that only female artists have. Her audacity of colour compositions creates unexpected harmonies, depicting humans in unusual postures, crouched or languid, relaxed or tense but always sincere and filling it all with their unique presence.”
Text: Dr. Lily Fürstenow…Berlin, Germany 2026
“Barbara Herzfeld has a BFA from Washington University in St. Louis. She was a textile designer for twenty years. Her early pieces depict grand Sumo Wrestlers in surreal color and pattern as an amalgam of beauty and aggression. They are a slew of motion and energy. Herzfeld describes, “I loved the skin on skin closeness of these large nearly naked opponents captured in what might be perceived as an aggressive or passionate embrace with facial expressions that could be either amorous or fierce.” In her large watercolors that barely contain the sumo pairs, she pushes this ambiguity of intimacy and aggression while in the smaller acrylic paintings, the wrestlers affectionately curl up with large docile animals.
In 2019, during a studio visit, a collector suggested that she consider painting regular men and women. She tried it. By the time the COVID crisis began, she had made the shift from painting sumos to a more personal exploration of intimacy and sex between “regular” people. What persists is that her couples, like the sumos, are entangled with one another. Barbara’s body is central to all her ideas, and her work is an organic exploration and expression of her self.
Barbara Herzfeld has been in solo and group shows at Brandeis University, Harvard University, and several Brooklyn and Manhattan galleries. She was a finalist for a grant from The Massachusetts Council On The Arts. In 2019 she began representation by The Carter Burden Gallery with a solo exhibition.”
Text: Carter Burden Gallery, New York, NY
