Barbara Hanger

Associate Professor

About

Barbara Hanger joined the faculty of the Department of Fine Arts in 1982 after completing her MFA degree at Ohio University. Born in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, landscape and a sense of place, either from direct observation or filtered through memory, has been a key element in Hanger’s artwork. Another key element has been her devotion to drawing as her central medium even though she has worked in printmaking, papermaking and book arts.

Barbara Hanger first traveled to Italy to study art with the University of Georgia’s Studies Abroad Program in Cortona while working on her BFA degree. Returning many times since, including her sabbatical leave in the spring of 2011, the Tuscan landscape has been the subject of many of her drawings reflecting a love of the place and her interest in capturing subtle changes of light and shadow.  Her current work is inspired by the undisturbed landscape of Cumberland Island, Georgia and it’s oak, pine and palm maritime forests and vast marshlands. Hanger’s drawings are executed in colored pencil on handmade paper that has been prepared with a sanded ground. The origin of each drawing is a specific place, yet the finished works are a combination of reality and fiction. Hanger’s intent is to layer elements within each work as a metaphor for the specific and fragmented nature of memory.

Barbara Hanger’s work has been exhibited in numerous invitational and traveling exhibitions locally, regionally and internationally including Mainz, Germany and Cortona, Italy. Barbara Hanger has received competitive grants from the Kentucky Foundation for Women, the Kentucky Arts Council, and the Ohio Arts Council.

Barbara Hanger’s primary focus at the University of Louisville was overseeing the MAT program in Art Education in cooperation with the College of Education and Human Development. Hanger has mentored over 150 graduates of the program who now make up the bulk of art teachers in the region’s elementary, middle and high schools. Hanger has served on numerous committees in the College of Education and Human Development, and is currently a member of the College’s Unit Assessment Committee (2008-15). Hanger was also appointed to the University’s Commission on the Status of Women where she served from 2009-2013.  She has served on the Board of Directors of the Kentucky Art Education Association (1999-2003), and as a juror for more elementary, middle and high school art exhibits that she can recount.

 

Course Offerings

ART 105: Foundation 2D Design
ART 106: Foundation 3D Design
ART 107: Foundation Drawing
ART 207: Foundation Figure Drawing
ART 341: Introduction to Printmaking
ART 385: Introduction to Book Arts
ART 508: Art Education Methods and Research I
ART 518: Art Education Methods and Research II
ART 585: Book Arts Concepts
ART 390/590: Handmade Paper as Medium
ART 590: Paper: Mixed Media

Research Areas

Contemporary practices in drawing, papermaking and book arts
Contemporary research and practice in art education

Exhibitions

Summer State of Mind, New Albany Arts Council, New Albany IN, June 10 – July 16, 2016.
Art[squared], Louisville Visual Art, Louisville, KY, April 8-9, 2016.
Botanica 2014
, Women’s Club of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky, September 2014.
Hite Faculty Exhibition, Cressman Center for the Arts, Louisville, Kentucky, January 17 – March 8, 2014.
Embracing the World, Belknap Gallery, Allen R. Hite Art Institute, University of Louisville, October 3 – November 10, 2013.

Professional Membership

National Art Education Association
Kentucky Art Education Association