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STATEMENT

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I do not make pictures of things.
I make weather.

Fifty years of this. The work has not become more explainable.

I start where the knowing stops.
Not at the edge of the cloud, but inside it.

The mind reaches and then slides off.
Something else, quieter, takes hold.

Form has a language of its own.

Come in.
Not-knowing is not empty.​

BIO

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My roots are in the West, growing up in Utah and California. I moved to New York City after college and have lived on the East Coast ever since, most of it in the Boston area.


Over fifty years I have had more than fifty solo exhibitions and shown in group exhibitions at museums, galleries, universities and institutions in the United States, Europe and the UK. Art News wrote: “one risks confounding the senses even before peeling back the first layer of brusque sensuality that clings to the surface of her paintings … a soulful, sympathetic sensibility that is rare to find in such an obsessive technician.”


I have curated exhibitions and written essays (more than 1500, collected on Slow Muse.) These include artist monographs, curatorial statements and reviews, plus contributions to books and publications on creativity, art making, the business of art and entrepreneurship.


In 2020 I founded Pell Lucy, an international collective of artists who share a belief that form has its own intelligence. Pell Lucy artists have exhibited together in more than twenty shows, online and in person.


I live in Brookline and work from a studio at Waltham.

Key Exhibits

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Infinite Infinities
Jane Deering Gallery
Gloucester MA
2024

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Clew
Lamont Gallery
Philips Exeter Academy
Exeter NH
2017

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Morpeth Gallery
Hopewell NJ
2013, 2016

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Behind, Beyond, Beneath
Morris Graves Museum
Eureka CA
2015

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University Center Gallery
UC Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz CA
2014

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Orbilinia
Woodbury Museum
Utah Valley University
Provo UT
2013

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Harnett Gallery
University of Rochester
Rochester NY
2006

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Buckley Center Gallery
University of Portland
Portland OR
2005

Exhibit Catalogs (print and digital)

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Slant Dazzle

   (Grimshaw-Gudewicz Gallery)

 

In Praise of Form
   (Piano Craft Gallery)

 

Clew

   (Lamont Gallery, Philips Exeter Academy)

 

Under, Above, Everywhere: Deborah Barlow, Kay Canavino and Ramah Commanday 

   (Brodigan Gallery, Groton School and Peoria Contemporary Art Center)

 

Behind, Beyond Beneath: Scaling the Continuum
   (Morris Graves Museum)

 

Orbilinia
   (Woodbury Museum, Utah Valley University)

Artist Monographs/Reviews

​(catalogs, Instagram and Slow Muse)

 

Phoebe Adams

Kay Canavino

Ramah Commanday

Alison Cuomo

Tina Feingold

Karen Fitzgerald

Richard Fishman

Bill Flynn

Beth Galston

Audrey Goldstein

Lynette Haggard

Carter Hodgkin

Nona Hershey

Paula Overbay

Munira Naqui

Taney Roniger

Jill Slosberg-Ackerman

Pat Shannon

Debra Weisberg

George Wingate

Publications

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Liber Amicorum: A Gift for Juhani Pallasmas’s 90th
   (Essay, Soft Knowing)

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Diving into the Mystery: Studies in the Creative Process by Sue Booth-Forbes
   (Essay, The Creative Process: It’s All About the Backside)

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No Other Gods, poetry by Todd Hearon
   (Cover)

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Luxe Magazine

   (Cover)
 

Mud Season Review, Volume 2

   (Featured artist)

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Business and the Feminine Principle, the untapped resource, by Carol R. Frenier
   (Profiled in the book)

Video/Film

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Sakalees (Jon Sakata and Jung Mi Li)
VIEW VIDEO

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Radiant Films (Mary Hanlon)
George Wingate: Recollections
VIEW VIDEO

© 2026 by Deborah Barlow

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