32 Ryan's Hill Road, Bonavista, Newfoundland
BIO
Barbara Houston’s creative practice is based in Bonavista, Newfoundland. Born in Saskatchewan Houston was influenced by Modernist Art on the Prairies and landscape painting as expression of place and belonging.
My practice emerges from a foundation in architecture and design, shaped across the Canadian Prairies and refined through studies at Parsons School of Design in New York City and the University of Manitoba. With a background in Environmental Studies and architecture, I approach art as a spatial and investigative process—one that considers how we inhabit, perceive, and assign meaning to our surroundings.
Over two decades of work across disciplines have informed a sustained inquiry into space, material, and possibility. I am interested in the thresholds between built and natural environments, structure and intuition, permanence and change. My work often explores how subtle shifts—of light, form, or context—can open new ways of seeing and understanding.
Drawing from experiences in travel, design, and architectural practice, I engage materials and processes as both tools and collaborators. Through accumulation, iteration, and attention to detail, I seek to reveal latent relationships within space—moments of tension, balance, and quiet transformation.
Established in 2018, my studio practice continues to evolve as an extension of these concerns, grounded in observation and driven by curiosity about how space can hold memory, invite reflection, and suggest new possibilities.
In 2021 Houston designed the purpose built studio + her home at 32 Ryan's Hill Road creating a contemporary building which won her the coveted Southcott Award from the NLHistoric Trust for 'Design in Context' in 2023. The design stands as an introduction to her unwavering, intentional commitment—where materiality is expressed through sculptural form, refined aesthetics, + innovative detailing. Her home + studio signal the beginning of her full-time art practice in Bonavista, Newfoundland. Her work is held in both public and private collections + are available directly through the artist or via her website.
ARTISTS STATEMENT
ARTISTS STATEMENT
My work evolves from an intimate connection to place, shaped by a lifelong process of discovering and knowing it. During my formative years in Saskatoon, I was influenced by the Modernist Prairie artists of the day. My early introduction to art came through Saturday morning classes at the Mendel Art Gallery, visits to artists’ studios, and teachers who were themselves artists, poets, and writers. Each encouraged me to see, to record, and to interpret the land and space around me with attention and care.
At eighteen, I left the Prairies for Parsons School of Design in New York City. The scale and intensity of the urban landscape opened an entirely new way of seeing. Travel, study, and work fostered a need to locate oneself within the density of people, buildings, and ideas, and this began to solidify my ongoing inquiry into belonging—how it is formed, and how it is rooted in place, both personally and professionally.
In both isolation and immersion—whether within city or landscape—I discovered a source of focus. It taught me to draw from personal strength and to trust observation as a way of grounding. Place-holding and belonging became central to my practice.
In my early architectural work, the subject was the built environment: interior and exterior space, and the ways these spaces are shaped to create a quietly visceral and personal experience. I became interested in the relationship between interior and exterior worlds, between persona and environment, and how we present ourselves within the landscape—how we sit within it, and how it holds us. Whether in Newfoundland or in the centre of New York City, I continue to search for meaning and connection in my surroundings. These visual conversations are my anchor, and Bonavista, Newfoundland is both home and studio.
Trained by artists and architects, I was taught to see through a rigorous practice grounded in clarity, exploration, and integrity. A rigorous understanding of the technical qualities of materials leads to exploration and innovation. The fundamentals of design—form, line, structure, and composition—remain foundational to my work, allowing me to shape not only structure but feeling: something evocative, and at times quietly unexpected.
In my current practice, research, observation, and critical reflection inform an ongoing investigation into material. Raw Belgian linen, canvas, wood, paper, metal, and found materials each carry their own inherent language. By exposing the warp and weft of linen, the grain of torrefied maple, the surface of CorTen steel, Tyvek, and other materials, I build a foundation from which new narratives emerge. Applied through acrylic, oil, archival inks, and Japanese graphite, these materials become carriers of place.
Subtle variations arise through process and deliberate material choice. In this way, each work becomes a form of visual communication—an articulation of place and belonging, both rural and global.