Barbara Edelstein, born in Los Angeles, California, is a sculptor and multi-media artist that has lived and worked in both New York and Shanghai since 2000. She received her BA from the University of California, Santa Cruz in Art and Biology, and her MFA in Art from Claremont Graduate University, and had been an Associate Professor of Art at New York University in Shanghai.
Barbara Edelstein's work blends ink, nature, and contemporary cultural elements to create unique artistic meanings and visual forms. Having a western perspective on art, growing up on the Pacific Rim with its Eastern influences, and having worked in China for many years, has given her a unique viewpoint to combine both the cultures of the East and West into her art, and develop her multi-media artworks. Her art strives to render the poetic manifestation of the artist’s deep communion with the forms and spaces of nature, to create a denotation of its very essence, wherein all of nature is in movement, evolution, and transformation.
Barbara Edelstein's artworks have been widely exhibited in art museums, art centers, and galleries around the world, including P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in New York, the Frauen Museum in Bonn, Germany, the Venice Biennale in Italy, Gwangju Biennale in Korea, the Artists Museum Biennale in Poland, Shanghai Art Museum, and the Guangdong Museum of Contemporary Art. She has had large-scale public sculptures on permanent and long-term display in China, United States, and Europe, including the Djerassi Sculpture Park in California, the Shanghai JingAn International Sculpture Park, the Guangdong Museum of Art, the Hangzhou Municipal Government, and the Muzeum Kolei Waskotorowej in Poland. Her works are in the collections of several public and private institutions in many countries, including the Ahmanson Center for Contemporary Art, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Shanghai Art Museum, the Shenzhen Gallery and Museum, and the Dow Jones Company.