An idea transformed by a moment of observation into an image that signifies weight and contemplation.

A wall was constructed, why? For protection from the elements, from danger from the unknown. To construct shelter, to define what’s mine, ours and what is not. A wall is a way to keep the outside out and the inside, the private, in. It is a way to divide as much as it unites. A wall is a border, a boundary. The border that divides us from them, a boundary defines those limits. It defines limitations, how far we can go and where we should stop. A boundary in thought is as real as the Berlin Wall was, as the wall in Jerusalem is. A border can be a line in the sand south of Arizona, north of Mexico that defines who can walk in a region freely and who must present documentation.

A friend once referred to a creative block I was experiencing as me banging my head against a wall. I chose to step back and look at that wall, built and crumpled and allowed myself to peer around it, underneath it and above it. I walked through the door to my left and the one to my right, crawled back in through the window.

Now I gaze at the walls constructed in our society, both real and through the image of the real to the walls constructed in our sociological interactions, through the illusions of transparency created by the massive availability of controlled information. I wander up and down their length, stare up at their height and ever so often test their strength, by pushing or blowing, running up against them or simply removing a finger from the hole.

I work in series; moving between drawing, monotype and intaglio. Often monochromatically or muted in palette.

Barry Ebner is an artist primarily working in the techniques of intaglio and monotype.  Over the last 25 years he has had over 20 solo exhibitions, throughout California and the western part of the United States. He received his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Texas and his Master of Fine Arts with an emphasis in Printmaking from the California College of the Arts. Along with pursuing his studio work he is also an Instructor at the Academy of Arts University in San Francisco.