About the Artist
 

​​​​​​​​
​​​My work begins where discipline meets fire.

My adult practice took form at UCSB with Howard Warshaw, a master of volume and intensity who taught me how a line can move like the body—alive, dimensional, and present. That understanding of gesture as structure carried me to Venice, where I studied at the Accademia with Emilio Vedova, the maestro of abstract mark‑making.

Vedova’s orbit—shaped by Peggy Guggenheim’s Venice and a crucible of artists who reimagined modern art—clarified something essential for me: gesture is not an effect; it is a force. In drawings like Contorta, I translated form into movement and abstraction at once.

When I returned to California, gesture demanded substance. What began on paper pressed outward, insisting on weight, resistance, and time. My work moved decisively from paper to bronze.

Alone in the studio, I pushed plaster, wax, and clay—and molten bronze—past the point of comfort. Tension built in silence, heat gathering at the seams, until the moment the crucible gave way. In that release, something opened. I then found a casting team in California where craft, fire, and collaboration converge.

Bronze sculpture reveals itself as alchemy: emotion transforms into structure.
Gesture becomes presence.
​
Bronze & Alchemy

Italy has long been the heart of expression and inspiration in my work. In Molise, I found a centuries‑old foundry where bronze is still poured with care at over 2,000 degrees, alive with heat and history. Building relationships with master founders, I look forward to working hand‑to‑hand, to cast my sculptures through fire and wax, embracing bronze’s patience and its demand for clarity.

Bronze slows time. It records pressure, gravity, and intention. I sculpt what time and the elements reveal—mountains, rivers, sky, and the quiet fire within. Each piece carries the memory of its making.
​
Statement & Wildlife Sculpture
​
My practice spans statement works and wildlife sculptures, united by
gesture and mass.

Breastplate honors feminine strength—quiet, enduring, resilient. Xuaca is now held in a private collection. Orthia continues the movement of torsion. In wildlife works, gesture becomes freedom: Let Him Go captures Seabiscuit released; Playful Pals makes joy visible; White Stag brings myth into the present.

Across scales and subjects, I work for balance—grounded yet free—where structure carries emotion without sentimentality.
​
Lineage & Direction
​
I carry my lineage forward: Warshaw’s discipline, Vedova’s fire. Their influence lives in the way my forms hold tension and resolve it through mass. My work is grounded in California, with ongoing relationships in Italy and the Balkans. I continue to return to Venice with clarity and purpose.

A small number of pieces are completed each year and placed with collectors, galleries, and collaborators. I value conversations that are thoughtful and direct—rooted in material, intention, and long‑term vision.

Barbara Phelps — Bronze Sculpture

Story. Presence. Transformation.
​
​
Selected Exhibitions & Recognition
​
Barbara Phelps’ work has been presented in institutional, gallery, and curated contexts in the United States and Canada. Her drawings have been shown at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art and featured in Art Week Magazine. Her sculpture has been exhibited through Galerie Blanche, Montreal, and included in the Pac Rim Annual Sculpture Exhibition.Additional presentations and placements include the Fairmont Hotel, San Francisco, Bryant Street Gallery, Palo Alto (past representation), Dovetail Collection, Healdsburg, and Erin Martin Design, St. Helena. Her work has also received recognition through the Grace Hudson Museum. Art critic Kenneth Baker of the San Francisco Chronicle has personally commended the sculpture Icarus for its symbolic clarity and craftsmanship.