Barbara Doran Art
Barbara Doran Art
About the Artist
Barbara Doran’s work explores how bodies, cultures and living systems pattern one another across scales—from molecular processes to social expectations.
Dr Barbara Doran (Dr BD) is an interdisciplinary artist whose work explores embodied perception, cultural storytelling and the intelligence of the senses. Born in Wagga Wagga, Australia, she grew up in Southern Africa, including Swaziland and Zimbabwe—experiences that continue to shape her sensitivity to place, culture and shifting environments.
Known for a diverse mix of skills, studies and experiences, her artwork spans photography, installation, film, costume, performance and socially engaged practice. Alongside her art, education and research practice, Barbara has also worked as an art director on commercial and community-based multimedia projects spanning film, television, festivals, photography and music. Much of her work unfolds through collaborative community and research projects where artistic inquiry becomes a way of exploring how body, material and environment interact to shape perception, memory and meaning. Doran’s work investigates how patterns of perception move between personal experience and wider cultural systems, revealing the subtle ways stories are formed, repeated and reimagined through everyday acts of attention and making.
Her practice often sits within cross-sector initiatives linking art, health, environment and culture, including projects with the SPHERE Knowledge Translation Platform, where she contributes as curator of the Artist-in-Residence program.
Her work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions since 2003. She is a two-time recipient of the UNESCO Bioethics and Art Photography Prize and a two-time national winner of the “She” Award. Her work has also been selected as a finalist in national competitions, including the Olive Cotton Award and the Redlands Westpac Art Prize.
Alongside her artistic practice, Doran contributes to the growing field of arts and health and is currently President of the Arts Health Network NSW/ACT (AHNNA). She is the author of three books exploring creativity, embodiment and cultural systems. Creative Reboot: Catalysing Creative Intelligence presents a set of practical methods and creative “recipes” for activating imagination across diverse contexts, while Creative Practice and Embodied Narratives: Transdisciplinary Inquiry through the Body, Story and System draws together theory, case studies and stories emerging from her art-making practice.
Across exhibitions, participatory works and research collaborations, Dr Barbara Doran’s practice explores creativity as a living process—where body, story and material experience interact to open new possibilities for how individuals and communities understand themselves and the worlds they inhabit.
Selected Awards and Sponsorships
2021 – Inner West Council, Residency
2021 – Inners West Council, Residency
2020 – Acts of Care, Social impact Grant, UTS
2020 – Artist residence with Carers in residence project, Carers Research Project, UTS.
2019 – The Hive, SPHERE, NHMRC
2016 – Blake prize – director’s cut.
2015 – UNESCO Art and Bioethics Award, ‘Photography, winner
2013 – UNESCO Art and Bioethics Award, ‘Photography, winner
2012 - Redlands Westpac Art Prize emerging artists prize category
2012 - Brother Win International Design Contest, Mongolia.
2012 –University of Sydney – PPRS grant.
2011 - University of Sydney – PPRS grant.
2010 – Walker St Gallery – “She” national competition - winner.
2010 – Walker St Gallery/Deakin University - finalist
2009 – Walker St Gallery – “She” national competition – winner.
2009 – Olive Cotton Award - finalist
2007 – She Who dreams - national selection
2004 - BP Solar (sponsorship) – Solar jacket – sculpture
2000 – Sunrise National – winner best animation.
Collections
UNESCO Texas - ACT Govt. – Peas in a pod – Painting, Paper bark fish, Green peace, collection, Australia Post – Concern for the Trees, United Nations travelling art – Portrait of a Friend * Various private collections
Exhibitions
Contact Me
Barbara Doran is based at the University of Technology Sydney. See profile.
She is the Director of the Creative Intelligence and Strategic Innovation program and the lead curator so the the SPHERE (Sydney Partnership in Health Education Research and Enterprise).
These roles are part of Barbara’s broader practise “The art of living". Through her work in these roles and beyond, Barbara champions the life affirming power of creativity in shaping the primary artwork at hand - our personal and collective lives including those we shhttps://www.drbd.com.auare with ecosystems and worlds beyond the grasp of our imagination.
You can find out about Barbara’s book here.
And her consulting work here:
or see her professional profile here:
