Exploration of one’s soul and the spiritual realm can happen without practicing a traditional religion. Painter Barbi Leifert captures the soul of a dancer in her life’s work by exploring the energy, vibrancy and artistic brilliance inherent in contemporary dance.
Barbi Leifert’s “Dancer’s Palette” series captures the essence of artistry on multiple levels. First, there is the artistry of being a dancer. No one experiences the feeling of a lightness of being like a dancer. There is something about leaping high into the air that transcends time and feels like the clock has stopped — at least for a moment. Leifert trained as a dancer in New York City, performed professionally in her twenties as a performing artist in Soho, and later danced with Frank Hatchett of the Broadway Dance Center.
Ms. Leifert, who was a dancer since the age of three, has observed that when she’s creating a painting, she’s not copying pictures of movement. From her many years of dance and choreography, she actually has the movement in her body to the extent that she’s painting the feeling of the dance and not just the imagery. She has taken all that she has embraced as a dancer and shows the fluid lines of motion and the flashes of spark and color in her paintings. The expressive gestures she has preserved on canvas are reminiscent of the remarkable choreography of George Balanchine and the dazzling New York City Ballet; the gravity-defying fluidity of Mikhail Baryshnikov; and the delightful dancing seen in “An American in Paris,” choreographed by Tony award winner Christopher Wheeldon. Other contemporary dancers represented in her partings include Charles (Lil Buck) Riley, Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson and Paula Abdul.
As far back as she can remember, Leifert has always painted. As a child, she studied painting at the Brooklyn Museum. Her uncle was a printer who brought her reams of paper. Even much later in life, after she began painting for commission-based works, she never forgot her roots in dance. Dance and Art are one and the same. Both require intense focus for hours and enormous passion that transcends time and space.
Her latest collection, the “Dancer’s Palette” series, is a colorful and sophisticated series of paintings that have been inspired by some of the greatest dancers of our times. Ms. Leifert’s “Tapography” was inspired by tap dance icons Savion Glover, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Gene Kelly and Gregory Hines. “Brava!” was inspired by the sheer talent of Misty Copeland, and “Joyful Dream” emerged from the grace and athleticism of the Alvin Ailey Dancers.
Notables in the art world are prone to comment on Leifert’s work. Sheri Barnes, director of Gallerie Amsterdam in Carmel, Calif., recently said, “Barbi Leifert; her personality and indefatigable passion for her artwork, continually keeps her creative energy swirling around her and her paintings. Her new series, combining dance into her abstracts, is a good example of the energy that rhythmically flows through her work of rich harmonious colors, producing a sense of dynamic movement with emotional impact.”
A native New Yorker now living in Seattle, Leifert shows her paintings in Malibu, Los Angeles, Palm Springs, New York, Florida and Seattle. In addition to her training and career as a dancer, she is the author of the “Manhattan Dance School Directory” that was first published in 1978. The book chronicles the 84 dance schools that were individually owned and operated in New York City. (Available on Amazon.com) Leifert was also a freelance arts writer for Gannett Newspapers, covering both dance and the arts.
Brava!
Dance of the Soul:
Barbi Leifert, Solo Art Show | Dance Visual Art Fusion
By Patricia Vaccarino