Bärbel Smith is a contemporary Canadian artist renowned for her vibrant, semi-representational landscape paintings that capture the spiritual essence of the Canadian wilderness. Born in Germany, Bärbel immigrated to Canada as a child, settling in the region of Huntsville, Ontario. Surrounded by the area’s lakes, forests, and rolling hills, she developed a lifelong fascination with the natural world, spending countless hours sketching and painting the landscapes that would later define her artistic career. Her early connection to the beauty of rural Canada laid the foundation for her emotive and whimsical style.

 

Bärbel’s formal artistic journey began after moving to western Canada, where she trained at the Alberta University of the Arts under the guidance of William Parker. Her first exhibition took place in the mid-1980s at the Muttart Public Art Gallery in Calgary, marking the beginning of a prolific career. Over the decades, she has traveled coast to coast, drawing inspiration from Canada’s varied landscapes and infusing her work with a joyous palette and spiritual vision, inspired by the Group of Seven, particularly Lawren Harris, alongside Emily Carr, Doris McCarthy, and Ted Harrison. Her paintings, often created with acrylic on canvas, feature stylized trees, smooth lines, and glowing reflections, evoking a sense of peace, joy, and hope.

 

A juried signature member of the Society of Canadian Artists (SCA), the Ontario Society of Artists (OSA), and the Federation of Canadian Artists (AFCA), Bärbel has exhibited widely across Canada in juried shows, including the SCA’s 2022 Members Juried Show, the OSA’s 150th Anniversary exhibition, and the FCA’s Active Members Exhibition, earning an Honourable Mention in 2019 and recently receiving the Award of Merit from the SCA.

Her paintings are held in private and corporate collections throughout Canada, the U.S., Germany, and beyond, and she is represented by galleries such as Koyman Galleries in Ottawa, Galerie Bloom in Montreal, Butter Gallery in Collingwood, and Eclipse Gallery in Huntsville. In 2015, she completed a commissioned painting for the Children’s Wish Foundation, with prints displayed in hospitals across Ontario.

 

Her contributions to the arts have been recognized in publications such as Arabella Magazine (Spring 2024) and The Link Magazine (Autumn 2018), which featured her work on its cover.

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Bärbel resides with her husband of over 45 years in a forest-surrounded home near Green Valley, southeast of Ottawa, close to her nine grown children and grandchildren, to whom she has passed down her appreciation for fine art. Painting full-time, Bärbel continues to create works that reflect her deep connection to the Canadian landscape, striving to capture its numinous light, colors, and shapes in a way that transcends the physical and touches the eternal.