Barbara Bessac

Barbara Bessac is a French artist, author, researcher and lecturer based in London. She practices painting, drawing, engraving and writing alongside her academic duties researching and teaching art history.

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In her paintings as well as in her research, she explores individuals' relationships to objects and interiors. She paints intimate settings, experienced or dreamed of, deserted but inhabited, where the absence and the mark of bodies are outlined. These portraits of inner worlds are full of references to literature, the history of the arts, and personal stories. Through the repetition of patterns and the accumulation of details, the imaginary territories created by Barbara Bessac compose an atlas of contemporary domestic decor. More recently, she has developed in her practice the theme of the survival of images, and particularly the relationship that her paintings have with photography. 

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Since she obtained her doctorate in art history and theater studies in 2022, she has been teaching visual culture and design history in higher education (NYU London, University of the Arts London, Ithaca College London Center, Paris College of Art). She has written and published on the links between decorative arts and performance. 

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