LaHave Nova Scotia    

Gloria's Studio Gallery

Paintings from the heart~ fantasy and the incongruous.

Affordable, loveable, stirring and bizarre.

 Seeing is believing..

           Gloria Althea Barrett, artist, was born April 1942 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

  A.K.A the Queen of LaHave and Roweena the Lizard Lady, Gloria graduated from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 1966. She continued her education at Wolfrun College in England and on a scholarship at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Influenced by Gaugin, Barrett works in canvas and India rag paper in mixed media – oil pastels, acrylics, sparkle glue, gold lacquer and vivid dyes. Elissa Barnard, Arts writer for Halifax Chronicle Herald, describes Barrett’s work: “She is inspired in her paintings – of giant, soft women in landscapes, of cats and of fantasy images, by her dreams which she records in a journal, by the colours and sights she experiences in travels to Mexico, North America, the Indian Ocean, Europe and Scandinavia, and by the humour of her friends.”

In the early ‘70s Barrett painted her way through England, France, Norway and Morocco. For a new experience, she settled in the English Midlands to teach and later in the Canadian North to work with Cree Indians.

   In the ‘80s she applied for and received a grant to organize an exhibition of contemporary and historic costume pieces for the Canada Council. The exhibit ran successfully at the Art Gallery Mount St.Vincent University in association with Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum.

   Later she traveled and painted in Mexico and Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. She had major exhibitions on the island of La Reunion and later in Nova Scotia and British Columbia.

   In the ‘90s Barrett continued her travels and painted  Turkey, Egypt, Thailand and Sri Lanka after returning to Nova Scotia, she was featured as one of Canada’s rare finds on a CBC National Television special.

Currently Barrett lives and paints by the sea in LaHave, Nova Scotia.