Barbara Aroney began life on an isolated farm, later moving to the coastal town of Nowra on the south coast of NSW Australia. From there she went north to Newcastle, where she studied art and teaching. She had a rewarding career teaching art at a number of country NSW and Sydney schools. As a teacher she believed that the visual arts is an essential facet of education and was committed to achieving the best for her students, as people and in their school certification.
Since leaving teaching she has worked as an artist in a collaborative studio in Rozelle.Her artistic practise is based on responding to the world, on observation and on mark making. She paints in oils, draws in charcoal and conte and experiments with printmaking techniques. She also has an interest in making artist books.
Her subjects include the countryside and interior spaces, often of the large cathedral - like spaces of old shearing sheds. She has had a lifetime fascination with trees; the amazing variety of forms of trunks and branches - soaring straight trunks or twisted in response to wind and sea and the multiple trunk forms seen in the mallee Snow Gum.
Barbara Aroney has had a number of solo exhibitions, many group shows and she has won many commendations and prizes for drawing, printmaking and painting and the Open Prize at the annual Frost Over Barraba Arts Festival in 2017. Her work is in many private collections in Australia and overseas, and is held in the State Library of NSW and The Australian National Library.
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