Libby Barbee
Airport Office Building Lobby, Airport Office Building Lobby
Art at Den
Airport Office Building Lobby, Airport Office Building Lobby
Libby was raised on the southeastern plains of Colorado and currently lives and works in the Denver metro area. She received an MFA from the Mount Royal School of Art at Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore and a BFA in painting, a BFA in Art History, and a BA in French Language from Colorado State University in Fort Collins. Libby has taught courses in drawing, 2-D design, and socially engaged art practices at the University of Denver and Rocky Mountain College of Art. She has 15+ years of experience in arts administration within the non-profit and government sectors. Libby believes that art has the power to illuminate ideas, move people to action, and unite communities. As an arts administrator, her work has focused primarily on supporting cross-sector work through the arts and socially engaged artists. She is currently a Senior Program Manager at Colorado Creative Industries, a division of the CO Office of Economic Development and International Trade.
Libby Barbee’s artwork explores the historical relationship between Americans and their environment and is specifically engaged in an examination of American frontier myth and the mediating role it plays in the relationship between American identity and the American landscape. Through various media and forms, her work explores the contemporary political and social implications of frontier myth and imagines the western landscape as both a culture-defining myth and a thoroughly domesticated and culturally constructed space.
