Barbara Barber, now in her eighties, has had a lifelong interest in art. As a child she liked to draw but only took up painting more seriously in her late twenties. She studied for a term at the Julian Ashton School and then, after marriage and motherhood, pursued her interest in art in the south-western suburbs of Sydney where she lived. She attended lessons that took a traditional approach to plein-air landscape painting in both watercolour and oils at Ingleburn and in the Community Hall at Macquarie Fields.​

In the 1990's Barbara joined Bankstown Art Society, attending classes in drawing, watercolour, oils and acrylics, soon discovering that she enjoyed the abstraction of contemporary art especially for rendering landscape. Barbara has won local prizes for her work and has been commended in the Combined Art Societies of Sydney competitions. She is a Life Member of the Bankstown Art Society and continues to serve on the BAS committee.​