Barry Ebner – Artist Statement

An idea transformed by a moment of observation into an image that signifies weight and contemplation.

A wall was constructed, why? For protection from the elements, from danger from the unknown. To construct shelter, to define what’s mine, ours and what is not. A wall is a way to keep the outside out and the inside, the private, in. It is a way to divide as much as it unities. A wall is a border, a boundary. The border that divides us from them, a boundary defines those limits. It defines limitations, how far we can go and where we should stop. A boundary in thought is as real as the Berlin Wall was, as the wall in Jerusalem is. A border can be a line in the sand south of Arizona, north of Mexico that defines who can walk in a region freely and who must present documentation.

I gaze at the walls constructed in our society, both real and through the image of the real to the walls constructed in our sociological interactions, through the illusions of transparency created by the massive availability of controlled information. I wander up and down their length, stare up at their height and ever so often test their strength, by pushing or blowing, running up against them or simply removing a finger from the hole.

I work in series; moving between drawing, monotype and intaglio. Often monochromatically or muted in palette.

Barry Ebner is an internationally exhibited printmaker and painter. He earned his MFA in Printmaking from CCA in 2001. He teaches printmaking at AAU and is in numerous public and private collections.