Work
Working across painting, sculpture, video, and performance, Barbist organizes her practice into distinct yet evolving bodies of work that explore psychological states, embodied experience, and processes of transformation.
Der Grund auf dem ich stehe (2026)
A series of large-scale paintings on tarp, carried and performed with across sites in Miami and Austria, from a backyard performance to Hafelekar mountain above Innsbruck, before becoming paintings in the ordinary sense. The paint peels a little more with every fold and every trip, a parallel to how memory and belonging wear at the edges even while returning to the same ground. Shown at the Florida Prize in Contemporary Art, Orlando Museum of Art, 2026.
Babylonischer Turm (2021-ongoing)
From a psychological perspective, the evolving tower forms function as metaphors for inner architectures. Each structure marks a stage of development, moving from fragmentation toward balance and stability. The series traces a process of consolidation, where accumulation and tension gradually resolve into coherence over time.
Trauerarbeit (2024)
A series of paintings and a video examining mourning as an embodied and temporal process.
Übergänge (2023)
A series of large-scale paintings tracing a process of struggle and transformation, extended through movement-based performance.
Fallstudie Trauma (2022)
An ongoing body of work exploring trauma, memory, and repetition across painting, object, and moving image. The works respond visually and physically to experiences including the pandemic, the Surfside collapse, the war in Ukraine, and personal loss.
