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Shawn Barber  San Francisco, CA

'Portrait of the artist, Alison Casson'
'Portrait of the artist, Henry Lee'

* All images used with permission. Please do not distribute without first contacting the artist.


About Shawn


Shawn Barber’s body of work focuses primarily on painting and illustration. He received his BFA in 1999 from the Ringling School of Art & Design, in Sarasota, FL. His paintings and illustrations have been exhibited in diverse solo and group venues including: The Shooting Gallery, San Francisco, CA; CPop Gallery, Detroit, MI; Cowboys and Angels Gallery, San Francisco, CA; Cazenovia College, Cazenovia, NY; Strychnin Gallery, Berlin, Germany; Gallery 1988, Hollywood, CA; Miami Art Lab, Coral Gables, Fl; The Pete & Susan Barrett Art Gallery, Santa Monica, CA; The Green Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; The Society of Illustrators, NY, NY; The Selby Gallery, Ringling, Sarasota, FL ; The 1300 Gallery, Cleveland, OH. Shawn’s work is in collections worldwide, including those of Mat Hoffman, Van Morrison, Christian Slater and Rolling Stone magazine’s founder Jan Wenner.


Recommended by our guest curators


David Kassan

Brooklyn, NY artist

"I've also know Shawn for awhile, and have watched his work transform and evolve over the years. He is another fearless ballsy painter that will try anything to help him the ideas that are in his head out onto a canvas. He is also a huge inspiration in how awesome his work ethic is as well as how humble he is."

Scott Eagle

Asst. Dir. / Professor ECU

"Shawn Barber turns the politics of power upside down with a virtuoso and lavish oil painting style. For centuries this technique has been reserved for nobility and the wealthy. Even today, we see politicians, doctors and corporate donors commemorated in the oil painting portrait. Through Barber's eyes and brushwork we are shown a world that many of us were told was unsafe and at best uncouth- the tattoo culture. He shows us the nobility and the beauty of those people, as well as the power of that world and the tools of that trade with such skill that we must stop and seriously consider what we are seeing because someone with great talent has taken the time to glorify and signify that world in a work of art."


Shawn appears in the following Top 10 lists


'Tattoos'

'Twitterers'

'California'

'2007'

'#Instagram'


10 of 11 reactions displayed


"Do you also do landscapes? My grandmother has a painting of a fall landscape signed "Barber". She lived in Long Beach."

"Recently I was sitting in a bus terminal reading trying to figure out how to drown out the television with Ted Koppel and others...I had a copy of the current issue of Rebel Ink in my bag, I took it out and figured I might as well start listing artists or persons who I figured I had seen before in other publications on tattoos or who I figured I might see again. This proved to drown out the nonsense and televised lies. I enjoy focusing on art and art news. Shawn Barber escaped my list that day but not for long fore here I am (having visited this site while looking up Eric Fortune). I stuck around and found Shawn. Such is the arch in my life...such is the validation to continue what I started in the bus terminal...this man is indeed one to watch..visit his site."

"Fantastic! Can't believe he did the album work for Johnson & Johnson"

"the tattoos make the person with them stand out, when usually the tattoo stands out on the person"

"OUTSTANDING MY FRIEND!!! OUTSTANDING! BRAVO!"

"I love the details put into the tattoos. Great work!!!"

"Ooooo i want it. this artist has an extremely original style and these paintings deserve a lot of credit. i dont like the second painting, but only because he creeps me out"

"thats what i call an artist"

"I love the detail. Beautiful."

"WOW !!!"


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