Lea Barton and her work. Photo by Nancy Jacobs
Barton uses text and collage to explore new ways to present her ideas visually. Born February 23, 1956, in Yazoo City, Mississippi, she graduated from Millsaps College in 1996 and moved to New York for two years to earn a Master of Fine Arts from the Pratt Institute.
She has commented that she became more of a Southerner after living in the North when she was being asked to “tell about the South.” She was motivated to re-examine the culture that she “had ignored, rebelled against, and taken for granted.”
Barton currently lives in Flora, Mississippi; She had an exhibit at MUW in October, 2002, and Paradox in Paradise: Paintings by Lea Barton appeared from November 9, 2002 to January 12, 2003, at the Mississippi Museum of Art.