About Barbara
San Antonio native Barbara Felix, is a multidisciplinary figurative artist of Black and Mexican descent. She received a BFA in Graphic Communication from Texas State University in 1991. Felix's TSU coursework fired her love of the human figure and inspired her work as an artist. Her artistic process was nurtured at the Honolulu Academy of Art late 1990s. She continued her art study after returning to Texas at the Southwest School of Art in San Antonio, receiving a Best in Show award in 2007 at the juried All School Exhibition. She later earned a "Certificate in Drawing, Painting and Printmaking" from SSA in 2013. Felix also received a 1st place award for work from "The Color of Women" series, in 2019 at the [RE]Imagine exhibition in Round Rock, TX.
Felix's Glorious Way She Moves body of work has been featured in solo exhibitions at the Carver Cultural Center, Sala Diaz and the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts in San Antonio, and The Spellerberg Projects in Lockhart, Texas. Other solo exhibitions include Bailando con Mi Misma at Debra Benditz Studio Gallery in San Antonio in 2016, and Every Woman Venus Every Mother the Madonna at Leeward Community College in Honolulu, HI in 1998. She has participated in group exhibitions at The McNay Museum; Blue Star Contemporary's Red Dot exhibition; City of San Antonio Plaza de Armas Gallery and many other galleries and institutional spaces throughout San Antonio and the state of Texas.
Felix has also produced experimental stop motion animation and performance videos both as solo and collaborative projects, which have been featured at Luminaria San Antonio Arts Festival; Jumpstart Theater, The University of Texas and Palo Alto College in San Antonio, Boston Biennial and Dartmouth University in Massachusetts, Documented Humans Film Festival in New Orleans, The Contemporary at Blue Star's Darmstädter Sezession - Projection/Projektion video exhibition in San Antonio and Germany; and other film festivals, symposiums, workshops and pop-up events in San Antonio and across the United States.
Felix has curated "Between Yesterday and Tomorrow: Perspectives of Black Contemporary Artists of San Antonio for the City of San Antonio; "Beautifully Black - Art & Film" for Black History Month 2022/2023 at Slab Cinema Arthouse; and three "Gaga @theMovies" exhibitions for GAGA (Gentileschi Aegis Gallery Association) at the Santikos Bijou Theater Gallery from 2017 - 2019.
Felix is very active in the San Antonio art community. She is serving as president of the San Antonio Ethnic Arts Society (SAEAS) for 2023-2025. She is also an executive board member of Contemporary Art Month and a member of Gentileschi Aegis Gallery Association (GAGA) women's art organization.
Felix retired from full time in-house corporate graphic designer in early March 2022 to pursue her artistic passions full time. Her goal is to combine traditional and digital media with her love of dance and the figure, to explore racial identity, relationships, gender, and social justice issues, through both solo work and collaborative opportunities.
Photo by Anthony Francis.