Robert Baribeau

Stem #227 (Abstract painting)

2011

Robert Baribeau is an American abstract painter whose dynamic, sumptuous paintings express the visceral relationship between the act of painting and the processes of the natural world. Baribeau has long been on the vanguard of exploring the influence of landscape on contemporary abstraction. He lives and works in Stanfordville, New York. Baribeau earned his BS from Portland State University in 1978, and his MFA from the Pratt Institute in 1979. He has been awarded grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Pratt Institute Art Department, and the Florence Saltzman-Heidel Foundation. Baribeau has exhibited his work extensively in galleries throughout the United States. His work is included in several institutional collections, including those of the Neuberger Museum, Purchase, NY; Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Co., New York, NY; ABC Inc., New York, NY; and Bank of America Securities, San Francisco, Boston and New York. Baribeau constructs his paintings layer upon layer, building color, form and texture into viscous, impasto compositions, on supports that are themselves often thick, and even sculptural. He scratches and scrawls across his surfaces, infusing visceral emotion and energy into the work. His imagery is so layered and dimensional that even his works on paper convey a sense of texture and depth.