Hello! My name is Luisa Barbano, and I am an artist and illustrator based out of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania.

The body of work on this website represents a re-entering into the world of illustration and otherwise. I work in ink with many small, meditative marks to create pieces from my imagination and mind’s eye observation, drawing inspiration from both the divine and the worldly that I experience around me. This practice is how I sustain myself; this craft is how I thrive.

I work primarily in ink, which is perhaps one of the most disagreeable mediums. I have learned to accept the wayward splotches and speckles that mar my attempted meticulousness as they are; I know it’s a good day when I go about wearing ink on my hands. In this way, I am moved to accept my own differences and embrace life’s messiness.

I let art be my teacher as I navigate an entirely new world in life after a life crisis brought me down to near nothing. I am learning, one pen stroke at a time, how to retrieve old memories and forge new ones. My mark-making provides calm consistency in the face of an often-frenetic mind; whatever then pours forth onto the page is authentic and wholly mine. I am moored here, in this existence, by paper and ink. Thank you for sharing my new future with me, my friend.