Ursula Barton is a female freelance artist focused on painting urban landscapes and ink life drawings and portraits, inspired by her many bike rides across the bridges of Portland OR.
Proudly representing her Oregon Roots in Portland, Ursula graduated in 2010 with a BFA from Pacific Northwest College of Art. She then created a series of large paintings inspired by her rainy bike rides across the many bridges of Portland. This series grew into a product line celebrating the city, our rain, and our beautiful bridges.
Now after founding Jailhouse Studios in 2016, a female run art collective and gallery, focused on showing emerging female artists and their allies, she has expanded with talented local designers, manufacturers, and small businesses. This ongoing collaboration has helped her grow the UB product line, illustrating urban landscapes and creating accessible and sustainable products.
Enjoying the physicality of large scale painting, in 2011 she began her mural career. Working with small businesses and private homes. She continues to paint any walls and odd spaces she can find with imagery inspired by her environment. Her cityscape series has grown with her travels, with works featuring Seattle, Tacoma, San Francisco, LA, New York, Mexico and more. Ursula continues to investigate architectural narratives and the powerful metaphor of the bridge throughout her gallery work and street art.
Finding inspiration from her environment created an obsession with travel early in Ursula's career. Living in South America in 2005-2006, traveling to all 50 states of the U.S. in 2008-2010, visiting inspirational architecture of Europe in 2015, and being awarded a mural grant to live in Mexico in 2016, travel has become, and will continue to be the backbone of her process.
