Barbara Boissevain Visual Artist

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Venice, CA
Barbara Boissevain Visual Artist

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I am a visual artist and photographer who focuses on environmental issues in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond.

Currently, I am an artist in residence with the City of Palo Alto's Cubberley Artist Studio Program.

10/22/2026

On my way to Santa Fe for the CENTER Photo Festival 🏜️Excited and honored to share my work at this fabulous event where 100 photographers from all over the world are selected whose work focuses on social and environmental issues. Saturday night is the portfolio walk in the Railyard venue—if you are in town come hang out with the PHOTO tribe🫶

09/27/2026

Ocean Cyanotype: Juvenile Brain Coral Colony, 2026
Mixed media: Cyanotype and Watercolor
19 X 15 inches
Edition of five

This cyanotype was created from a photo of lab grown “baby” or juvenile brain coral ready for outplanting onto a damaged reef in the Florida Keys. Scientists have proven that corals can become better adapted to warming within the space of a single generation. Labs use rapid heat-stress tests to intentionally expose young coral families to elevated temperatures. The larvae or fragments that survive are flagged as resilient “super-genotypes”. These choice strains are then scaled up in land-based nurseries before being permanently outplanted. By breeding corals with the greatest heat tolerance, scientists can produce offspring that could endure either an additional 4.5 degrees F (2.5 degrees C) of heat over the course of a month or an extra 6.3 degrees F (3.5 degrees C) over 10 days.

Beautiful little miracles of science 💓

09/19/2026

My Photo “Halocline I, Chania, Crete” is available in the fabulous Center for Photographic Art’s 8X10 fundraising auction along with many other marvelous works! The link to bid on iGavel is in my Linktree on my profile. Thank you for supporting CfPA which is so important to our photography community!!

09/14/2026

Sea Worms (Protula sp.) in Sea Portal
Mixed-media cyanotype

Created from an underwater photograph I made while scuba diving off Paros during my residency this past July at Cycladic Arts in Greece. The image began as an encounter with Protula sea worms—delicate, otherworldly creatures whose forms seem almost imagined, yet belong entirely to the living world of the Mediterranean.

I transformed the photograph through cyanotype, then worked back into the surface with watercolor and ink. These added layers heighten the surreal quality of the organisms and the portal-like space they inhabit, allowing the work to move between observation and imagination, documentation and another kind of underwater reality.

Part of my ongoing exploration of the strange, fragile, and extraordinary life that exists beneath the surface of our own planet.

09/06/2026

For an artist, there’s nothing like living in the desert🌵 Last night we had some close encounters with “alien” clouds—Philippe and I were joking about what the space ships looked like hiding behind them 🛸

On a more philosophical note, after my mom passed I had the vision of our human lives being like clouds—our energy reconstituting and dissipating into many different forms, just like the clouds—maybe one of those fabulous clouds was my mom visiting me. . .

09/02/2026

My gorgeous girl Giselle is off to her third year at UC Santa Cruz, how proud and excited I am to see the strong, kind and insightful woman she has become!! She is double majoring in Studio Art and Art History (with a curatorial focus) and it was so much fun to experience the Biennale with her—the lens from which she decodes Art and interrogates museum collections is amazing. It was wonderful to dive with her—she has been diving since she was twelve and every time I looked over at her she was upside down! The fire we experienced on Paros was really scary—and is something she (and her generation) will have to face over and over again in the future. I’m hoping the strength, wisdom and resilience I saw in her this summer (and see in many of my beautiful students at the college) will be enough to get their generation through 🙏

08/29/2026

Seeing Lorna Simpson’s incredible oeuvre at the Pinault Collection while I was in Venice for the Biennale was by far my favorite—what an incredible multi sensory experience!! In this time of racially motivated fascism her powerful work is so important 🙏 There are so many aspects to her work I find mysterious, provocative and relevant to my own practice where I’m exploring mixed media photography and painting. So deeply grateful for this work lornasimpson 💓

08/25/2026

Bay Area Art folks--don't miss the opportunity to see "Surface Tension" at Gray Loft Gallery (Gray Loft Gallery) in Jingletown, Oakland! The exhibit closes this Saturday, and I'll be zipping up north for the closing 🏄‍♂️ hope to see you there!

Here are the details for the closing reception:

Saturday, August 29, 2026
4:00PM to 7:00PM

Gray Loft Gallery
2889 Ford Street No.32
Jingletown, Oakland, CA 94601

08/02/2026

We are so relieved to hear that Alyki and Cycladic Arts are fine after the fire that erupted at a trash facility on Paros on Tuesday afternoon turned dangerous in the early hours of Wednesday morning. The first photo is what we woke up to in the middle of the night and upon seeing this we chose to evacuate in the early morning hours Wednesday. The photo of the smoke from the water shows how surreal it was to experience this on beautiful Paros—and how no where is safe from climate change, this is our new normal on our small, fragile planet.

It was incredibly impressive to see the powerful Greek response to the Fire 🔥 They immediately sent large aircraft and helicopters scooping up tons of sea water (which we had a front row view)! I think this did a lot to mitigate the destruction.

I chose not to post about this until now, waiting to hear that our friends are okay. Greece is an incredibly resilient country, with so many kind and generous people—I’m so honored and grateful for my time there and I will be back again someday soon 🇬🇷🌊🇬🇷🌊

04/12/2026

I’m excited to share a new series of experimental cyanotypes on metallic paper ✨

These images were created from my recent dives in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary—one of the most biodiverse marine environments in the world. Translating these underwater moments into cyanotype on a reflective surface has opened up a new dialogue between light, depth, and material.

These prints are headed to the Eco-Discovery Center in Key West, where they’ll be exhibited in a space dedicated to celebrating the unique and fragile ecosystems of the Florida Keys.

Grateful to be part of a venue that honors the beauty and complexity of our oceans 🌊

Address

737 West Washington Boulevard
Venice, CA
90292

Website

http://www.barbaraboissevain.com/

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