PRESS RELEASE: Tess Barbato Opens July 12 at Worcester Center for Crafts Hyper-Realist Painter Winner of NOW 2016

Photo courtesy of tessbarbato.com

Worcester, MA- An exhibit of oil paintings by Worcester artist Tess Barbato opens in the Krikorian Gallery of the Worcester Center for Crafts on July 12, 2018, and will be on view through August 4. Gallery hours are Tuesday-Saturday, 10-5 and admission is free. An artist celebration will be held as part of the Center's HOT NIGHT IN THE CITY event on Friday, July 20.

Tess Barbato is a young, 21st century American realist oil painter whose work is painted in a traditional manner, but whose imagery and concept is anything but traditional. In 2016, her work "Cake" was chosen as first place winner of the ArtsWorcester/Worcester Center for Crafts NOW exhibition which qualified her for a one-person exhibit at the Worcester Center for Crafts.

Work by Tess Barbato

"Tess's work is very much in demand," said Krikorian Gallery Director Candace Casey. "Her paintings are absolutely breathtakingly beautiful and they draw you in immediately; then you start to think and wonder what are they really about?"

The artist, Tess Barbato possesses a larger than life vision that results in incredibly detailed portrayals of the most mundane of objects. Pill bottles spilling their contents, packages of pork ribs supersized, a stack of coins, a cap from a prescription bottle turned upright like a fluted cake: these images and more inhabit her work, beatifying and beautifying at the same time.

Work by Tess Barbato

Barbato inherited her artistic sensibility from a long line of family artists and graduated Summa Cum Laude in Fine Arts from Plymouth State University. She cites her lifelong struggle with dyslexia for her compulsion to make art and to use it as her preferred means of communication.

"I use art to communicate about certain current social topics which have caught my attention," reads her artistic statement. "The medium of oils allows me to create dimensionality and add suppleness that depicts an almost palpable rendering of the subject. This medium allows me to depict ordinary, often overlooked items in a distinctly tactile way." And, in a tactile way that produces a POW! In the viewer's brain as the viewer starts to relate to the work in a narrative way.

"Cake", by Tess Barbato, 2016 winner of NOW: New Work, New Artists

Tess' paintings have been accepted for numerous juried exhibitions and have accumulated several awards and honors. Some of her recent showings have been in the Art of the Figure, juried by Philip Pearlstein in Setauket, New York; Less Is More: Small Works in a Great Space, juried by Jack Rasmuissen and Joann Moser in Annapolis; The New England Collective IV juried by Kaveh Mojtabai and Brian Goslow, the Publisher and the Editor-in-Cheif of ArtScope Magazine at Galatea Fine Art in Boston.

She is currently working out of her studio in Framingham, Massachusetts. 

For more information or to arrange an interview, contact Honee Hess, hhess@worcester.edu

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About the Worcester Center for Crafts:

The Worcester Center for Crafts (WCC) is one of the oldest non-profit institutions for craft study in the United States. Founded in 1856 as the Worcester Employment Society to help immigrant women produce and sell hand-crafted wares to support their families, the Center evolved over the past 155 years into New England's leading center for craft education, exhibition and entrepreneurship. In 2004, the organization expanded and opened the New Street Glass Studio - an off-campus, 8,000 square foot, state-of-the-art, multi-studio glass facility. The WCC offers the only comprehensive glass studio program in New England available to the public.  Through an affiliation begun in 2009, the WCC is home to the Worcester State University visual arts studios and partners in community outreach.

The Craft Center's mission is "to sustain craft as a vital part of our community" by providing high-quality craft education and training, by supporting craft artists in their professions, and through advocacy and public education initiatives including adult education classes and workshops, exhibitions showcasing the work of established and emerging artists, artist residencies, lectures, family events, studio rentals, Gallery Store, its Youth Craft + Creativity program and major events. The WCC is a member of the Worcester Cultural Coalition and receives funding from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.