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"Egret: Early Summer, Avalon Preserve, Stony Brook, NY," by Ross Barbera, Mounted Watercolor on Canvas, 43" x 28", 2017

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The piece featured on this page is my most recent watercolor mounted on canvas painting. It is part of an ongoing series of watercolor and acrylic paintings dedicated to the  Long Island, New York landscape. 


The dominant theme throughout most of my work is the natural landscape environment, and my paintings range from close-up views of water surfaces, trees, forest floors, leaves and flowers to more encompassing views. Created in acrylic on canvas and watercolor on paper I strive to create images that communicate a sense of beauty, painterly integrity, and capture specific places in terms of time, light, space and texture.


Along with my works on canvas I also create watercolors on paper that include flowers and landscape subjects. My most recent flower watercolors focus primarily on close-up views. Inspired by their abstract qualities and rich colors, I visit greenhouses and botanical gardens to photograph for my subject matter.


In addition to painting, I also create jewelry using nontraditional materials. I started designing and making  jewelry when I was a graduate student at Pratt Institute, majoring  in  painting  with a  minor in jewelry fabrication.  My early jewelry was created mostly in sterling silver, and I often incorporated enamels to add color.  Over time my jewelry transitioned  from metal to more experimental materials, including  wood, plastic and paper. By the late 1980s I developed a process of  jewelry fabrication by building up layers of 140 pound Arches watercolor paper, and painting directly onto the surface with watercolor and acrylic paints.
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A brief summary of my career as an artist includes group, juried and  solo exhibitions of my paintings almost every year since 1975, prestigious grants including a National Endowment for the Arts in painting, and  currently I am a tenured faculty member  teaching at St. John’s University,  in the Department of  Art and Design, where I served as  chair  for three years.