Barbara Felix
San Antonio native Barbara Felix, is a multidisciplinary figurative artist of African American and Mexican American 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 long pursuit to become an artist. Her artistic process was nurtured at the Honolulu Academy of Art in the late 1990s, and she continued her art study after returning to Texas at the Southwest School of Art in San Antonio, where she received 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 “The Color of Women-Thelma & Barbara” in 2019 at the [RE]Imagine exhibition in Round Rock, TX.
Felix’s work has been featured in solo exhibitions in San Antonio at the Carver Cultural Center, Sala Diaz and the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts. 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. Felix has participated in group exhibitions throughout Texas including The Spellerberg Projects in Lockhart, Louise Hopkins Center for the Arts in Lubbock, Amarillo Museum of Art (AMoA), Rockport Center for the Arts, and Beeville Art Museum.
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 San Antonio 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, workshops, and pop-up events in San Antonio and across the United States.
She began curating exhibitions of her peers in 2017 through her involvement with “Gaga @theMovies” exhibitions for GAGA (Gentileschi Aegis Gallery Association) at the Santikos Bijou Theater Gallery from 2017-2019; ”Beautifully Black-Art & Film” for Black History Month 2022-2023 at Slab Cinema Arthouse; “Between Yesterday and Tomorrow: Perspectives of Black Contemporary Artists of San Antonio” for the city’s Department of Arts & Culture 2023, and is an ongoing curator for the month of June exhibitions at Sala Diaz in San Antonio beginning in 2023 presenting Alethia Jones: Between Chaos and Peace, and upcoming 2024 exhibition for Theresa Newsome.
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 an executive board member of Contemporary Art Month (CAM); and she is a member of Gentileschi Aegis Gallery Association (GAGA) women’s art organization. She retired from being a 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
