Barbara Ess was renowned for using unconventional methods to underline the subjective nature of experience and representation, such as her haunting pinhole photographs and performing in experimental bands as part of the downtown New York art scene of the 1980s and 90s. Employing lo-fi optical devices and image systems such as small telescopes and toy microscopes, Ess embraced the glitches and unintended artifacts resulting from her processes, seeking to depict the uncertainties of perception and uncover “ambiguous perceptual boundaries between people, between the self and the not self, and between ‘in’ here and ‘out’ there.” Selected exhibitions include White Columns, New York, New York; Queens Museum, Queens, New York; Pérez Art Museum, Miami, Florida; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia; Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York; Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada; The Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, New Jersey; Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati, Ohio; V&A Museum, London, England; National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan. Selected collections include The Jewish Museum, New York, New York; The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York; MOCA, Los Angeles, California; SFMOMA, San Francisco, California, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota; The Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Musée d'Art Moderne, Paris, France; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, Texas. Ess’s academic background includes the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan; the London School of Film Technique in London, England; and was an Associate Professor of Photography at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, for over two decades. Exhibited works by Barbara Ess at ABRI MARS are courtesy of Magenta Plains and the Estate of Barbara Ess, New York, New York.