Middle Street Gallery: Home Page

Barbara Heile studied painting and received degrees (BA76 and MFA82) at American University in Washington, D.C. during a time when the faculty was still grounded and sensitive to the tradition of painting as embodied by artists who worked in a visual and refined expressive process.

She works primarily in oil and cold wax and began exploring acrylics in 2022.

Any medium that affords her a visual and painterly way into relationship with what she is feeling - and open to seeing - is her path.

Her approach is truly Aquarian in nature. Her work is original and she is open to the new; honoring of tradition she is not held by it. In earlier years the landscape had her full attention. This gave way to her interest in the abstract surface for its own sake, as expressive paint. The inner landscape of her felt sense is at present her main subject where new shapes come into painted form.

The paintings express joy and freedom and a depth of stillness through the healing qualities of color and light.

The directness and spontaneity of her approach, often using her hand directly to move the paint, can be felt in the surface and in the free interplay of color. She sees her way of painting as a path of expressive contemplation and is grateful for this way of loving the world as a visual artist.

Barbara has been actively showing in group and one person shows since the early 1980‘s and is a familiar face among artists in Rappahannock County. She enjoyed three years teaching Drawing and Painting at Lord Fairfax Community College in Warrenton, VA. Until its closing in 2015, she kept an active and open studio at River District Arts in Sperryville Her daily studio work now takes place at home.

Her natural call to painting supports her wish to share the experience of the mystery we all live in as human beings. A lifelong meditation practice supports the silent depth you can experience in even her smallest paintings. Her paintings have found homes around the world.

Being the mother of three independent and creative sons, raised in Rappahannock County, is by far her most rewarding life experience.

Barbara keeps an active diary of her work in progress on Instagram @bheileart ~~~thank you for looking! ~~~

JIM SERBENT

THE BARDO SERIES

Although my artworks span six disparate categories, including video art, the most recent one that also contains the greatest number of pieces is the BARDO series. These works take visual art to a new level by fusing photography, CGI, and video processing. Since camera, lens, and image capture remain integral to this methodology, the resulting compositions may be described as enhanced photographic art through advanced digital techniques — without the use of AI. An artist-friend who attained national recognition saw it as Twenty-First Century Art.

The BARDO project presents positive, meditative, abstract works about transcendence. Not only do these pieces attempt to elevate the spirit of the viewer, the entire process is profoundly contemplative for the artist. These archival pigment prints are comprised of high energy fractal renderings superimposed over still-framed video feedback backgrounds, often combined with aerial photography or other natural sources. Fractals are CGI visualizations of mathematical formulae that emulate repeating patterns found in nature, from river deltas to plant blossoms, to orbits: sub-atomic and astronomical. Shaping, twisting, warping and multiplying nascent geometric forms into final compositions is an art unto itself. If all of this seems overly complicated, all one needs to know is that this series was inspired by levels of being and states of consciousness rooted in Tibetan Buddhism. As you look deeper into each composition, your mind will hopefully transcend mundane concerns and, even if just for a moment, approach a deeper level.

As in nature, mathematical relationships have been innately integrated in the arts since the early cave paintings. Digital melding of the above elements opened new doors of perception for me to delve deeper into the numerical relationships hidden within imagery. Whether I apply mixed-media to surface, photograph the perfect composition, or push geometric forms beyond their limits, it's all about the final result: a visually compelling composition that will draw you in.

Art Bio

Following a career in broadcast video production where composing and editing the moving image not only demanded extensive photographic expertise but practical knowledge of all aspects of media production from audio to art direction, Jim Serbent attained complete artistic freedom through independent video art projects and digital print making with major focus on the latter. Since the early 1980s his artworks have been featured at: The Whitney Museum of American Art, SFMOMA, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Triton Museum of Art, Washington Project for the Arts, D.C. Art Center, Arlington Arts Center, Faber Birren National Color Award Show, and art spaces in New York, Washington DC, Virginia and California. Video art pieces were selected for US and international film festivals: AFI, Great Lakes, Little Washington, Tokyo Lift-Off, London Lift-Off, and NY Psychedelic.