Del Kathryn Barton (b.1972) lives and works in Sydney. She is one of Australia's most celebrated contemporary artists, famous for her figurative paintings that feature fantastical characters posed against ornate—and sometimes psychedelic—backgrounds. Many of Barton's intricate paintings are focused on women, often surrounded by an abundance of flowers, fruit and other symbols of femininity, fertility and motherhood. On the occasion of the opening of a major retrospective of her work at the National Gallery of Victoria in 2018, Barton said: 'My greater oeuvre always speaks to different ways of inhabiting a female body in all of its complexities.'
Barton has been a finalist in the Archibald Prize five times and won it twice: first in 2008 for a self-portrait with her children, then in 2013 for her painting of the actor Hugo Weaving, which is one of her few male portraits. Although Barton is best known for her paintings, she also works with collage, sculpture, textiles and video. In 2022, Barton released her first feature film, Blaze, which she co-wrote and directed.
