Barbara Simcoe has been a working artist for more than twenty years. Her formal art training was at the University of Illinois in Urbana and the University of North Texas in Denton. She lived and worked in Dallas, Texas for sixteen years where she was very involved in the art community and in exhibiting her work. She also worked as a graphic artist and as a visiting artist/teacher at several colleges and universities during that time.

Since 1998 she has been on the faculty of Art and Art History at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and is currently an associate professor. Barbara has shown nationally and in European venues in many invitational and juried exhibitions. She has had numerous one and two person exhibitions in the Midwest and in Texas and has received many awards and grants, most recently a Fulbright Scholarship for which she traveled to Siauliai, Lithuania spring semester 2004 to teach and make art. She traveled to Israel summer 2005 to participate in an international exhibition in the city of Akko. Academic year 2006-07 she is on sabbatical the focus of which will be working in the studio.

Barbara Simcoe
"Continuation and Promise"
Digital prints based on the Isaac and Jacob stories from Genesis
Jewish Community Center Art Gallery
November 11 to December 28
333 South 132 Street
Omaha, NE  68154
Reception:
Sunday November 19, 2-4 pm
Gallery Hours:
Monday-Thursday, 8 am-9 pm
Friday 8 am-5 pm
Sun 11 am-5pm

About "Continuation and Promise"
June 2005 I participated in the Yitzhak International Arts Gathering that took place in Akko, Israel. That project came into being through a consortium of Jewish Federation chapters called Partnership 2000 of Western Galilee of which Omaha is a member. The purpose of the consortium has been to support and foster professional, cultural, social and economic relationships that establish and preserve ties with Jewish communities in Israel, the partner cities and around the globe. The theme of Yitzhak (Hebrew for Isaac) was the creative center that artists considered in making their contributions. I decided to take a metaphorical narrative approach and developed five large digital prints based on the Yitzhak/Isaac stories in Genesis. The experience of working on the Yitzhak/Isaac stories for the Akko Exhibition was so satisfying that I continued working with narratives from Genesis for this exhibition at the Jewish Community Art Center Gallery that includes the Jacob cycle of stories.

My basic art making method, whether in painting, drawing or digital photography has been to work from multiple photographic sources, constructing pieces with spaces that could not really exist in the real world but have the feel of being real. My intention is to create images that are about psychological and spiritual realities and in that sense are always meant to function primarily as metaphor, not illustration of narrative. The landscape photo sources for all the images in this exhibition are primarily from photos I took while on a Fulbright in Eastern Europe Spring 2004 and Israel Summer 2005.

The point of view I took in developing these images is from the perspective of the feminine. While these narratives from Genesis have at their core the covenant God made with the Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, they are fully dependent on the principle female personae: Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah. And it is from their perspective that I developed my pictorial ideas.