How Brooklyn Artist Izzy Barber Painted Her American Roadtrips

Summary

Podcast Summary: "How Brooklyn Artist Izzy Barber Painted Her American Roadtrips"

Podcast: All Of It with Alison Stewart
Host: Alison Stewart (WNYC)
Guest: Izzy Barber
Date: June 30, 2026
Exhibit Discussed: "Clay Pigeons" at the Charles Moffatt Gallery, 394 Broadway, NYC (through July 31)

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Alison Stewart speaks with Brooklyn-born artist Izzy Barber about her immersive, cross-country road trips and the resulting body of paintings that form her new solo exhibition "Clay Pigeons." Seeking to break out of the "New York bubble," Barber set out on three different road trips, documenting the American landscape and the communities she encountered—often painting scenes directly from life, in oils, on location. The conversation explores motivations for her journeys, the logistical and emotional process of painting on the road, and deeper reflections on the people and places that shaped her work.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Impetus to Leave New York

• Breaking Out of the Bubble: Barber describes a growing urgency post-presidential election to engage with places and issues outside New York.
  • Quote: "It became an urgent kind of feeling after the presidential election and I kind of realized that now was the time to do it." (02:20)
• She left a long-term job (13 years) in December 2024 to devote herself to the project.

2. Starting the Journey: Serendipity and Subject Matter

• Finding a Starting Point: A commission for an album cover inspired by Tucson, Arizona, gave Izzy a concrete launchpad.
  • Quote: "This is actually a place I can start and just go to the desert and paint... I started not realizing that the border wall was actually going to be a major subject until I was there." (04:01)
• The first trip began in Tucson in June 2025—Izzy highlighted the intense heat and discovering the border wall as a key theme.

3. Artistic Process on the Road

• Painting from Life: Izzy's practice involves starting and finishing her paintings at the scene, never relying on photos.
  • Quote: "My practice has always been painting from life, which means I start and finish a painting where I am." (05:02)
• Materials: She traveled with canvases, panels, and prepared palettes, setting up whenever she found a compelling subject.
• Choice of Medium: Izzy's preference for oil is a longstanding one.

4. Itinerary and Planning

• Flexible Routing: The first trip was largely unplanned, allowing for "meandering." Later trips were more structured, focusing on border regions in Arizona and Texas.
• Travel Companions: Alone for most of each trip, she was joined by a friend for the return drive.

5. Encounters & Surprises on the Road

• Human Connection: Izzy highlights the warmth and decency of individuals she met.
  • Quote: "Most people are really wonderful on an individual level." (07:14)

Notable Experience in El Paso

• Immigration Court Hearings: A week spent following a habeas case for a detained man and supporting his fiancée was especially impacting.
  • Quote: "I ended up spending the entire week with the fiance of that man... that was a very difficult thing to see. But then it was also wonderful to see so many people involved in El Paso who are so dedicated to helping and supporting those who are detained there." (07:54 - 08:51)

6. Painting Techniques: Moving Cars & Night Scenes

• Painting in Motion: She painted from the car’s passenger seat (with a makeshift easel) on the drive back to New York, especially on July 4, 2025.
  • Quote: "It was really thrilling... there's something about painting that sometimes for me, can feel like a sport as well." (10:34)
• Night Painting: Izzy finds painting at night exhilarating—it requires looking in a new way.
  • Quote: "At night, it's a different feeling. But then it's also a different experience of looking." (11:00)

7. Exhibiting and Curating the Work

• Exhibit Scale: Paintings are intentionally small (6x6 to 15x11 inches) to preserve the immediacy and feasibility of working on-site.
  • Quote: "To go any larger would compromise the project of looking and the project of painting from life." (12:16)
• Selection Process: Final paintings were selected based on color connections and thematic resonance, loosely grouped by trip.

8. Drawing Practice & Immigration Context

• Sketches of Delaney Hall: Included to tie the exhibit to the New York/New Jersey area and recent events (ICE confrontations, hunger strikes).
  • Quote: "I made those drawings outside of Delaney hall, where there were these hunger strikes by detainees and a lot of armed ICE faced off against protesters." (13:51)

9. Reflections on Immigration and American Complexity

• Personal Observations: The experience near the border deepened her understanding of the moral and practical complexities of immigration.
  • Quote: "There is a complexity in... border towns... there’s a lot of, like, Border Patrol that... has even family members who are undocumented. It's a lot trickier on the personal level than I think, if you might think." (15:02)

10. Reintegrating with New York

• Straddling Two Worlds: Returning to New York after each trip sometimes felt surreal—like she hadn’t left at all.
  • Quote: "After a week, it would almost be like, did I even leave? But in some moments, I can connect. I mean, there are things happening here just as much as they're happening everywhere else." (16:23)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On leaving New York:
  "It became an urgent kind of feeling after the presidential election and I kind of realized that now was the time to do it." — Izzy Barber (02:20)

• On painting from life:
  "My practice has always been painting from life, which means I start and finish a painting where I am." — Izzy Barber (05:02)

• On night painting:
  "At night, it's a different feeling. But then it's also a different experience of looking." — Izzy Barber (11:00)

• On observing the border’s complexity:
  "There is a complexity in... border towns... there’s a lot of, like, Border Patrol that... has even family members who are undocumented. It's a lot trickier on the personal level than I think, if you might think." — Izzy Barber (15:02)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:20] — Izzy explains her decision to leave her job and travel post-election
• [04:01] — How a commission led her to Tucson and the discovery of the border wall theme
• [05:02] — Explanation of her practice of painting exclusively from life
• [07:54] — Relating her intense week attending immigration hearings in El Paso
• [10:34] — Painting in the car; improvising a mobile art studio
• [11:00] — The thrill and challenge of night painting
• [12:16] — Why all paintings are small; preserving immediacy of experience
• [13:51] — Drawing the hunger strikes and ICE standoffs at Delaney Hall
• [15:02] — Nuanced observations about border communities' involvement in immigration issues
• [16:23] — Reflections on the difficulty and necessity of integrating road trip insights into New York life

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Episode Tone & Style

The conversation is curious, empathetic, and candid—Izzy Barber speaks openly about her motivations, vulnerabilities, and discoveries both artistic and personal. The dialogue balances artistic process with social observation, bringing a nuanced, first-person approach to often-abstract national issues.

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For more on Izzy Barber’s work, visit the "Clay Pigeons" exhibit at Charles Moffatt Gallery through July 31 and follow All Of It with Alison Stewart for future artist conversations.

Transcript

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[Alison Stewart]

This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. A sentiment you hear a lot is that New York is culturally and politically distinct from the rest of the country. Artist Izzy Barber is New York born and raised, and in the last few years she attempted to break out of the New York bubble. Izzy embarked on three cross country road trips and painted what she saw interstates, national parks, border walls, oil fields and detention centers. The result of her travels is a new solo exhibit featuring her latest oils on the show is called Clay Pigeons. It's on view at the Charles Moffatt Gallery at 394 Broadway through July 31. A sample of some of her work we'll be discussing is on our Instagram story now llofitnyc and Izzy Barber is my guest now in studio. Welcome to wnyc.

[Izzy Barber]

Thanks so much for having me.

[Alison Stewart]

Can you pinpoint the moment when you saw it? I gotta get out of New York.

[Izzy Barber]

Well, I had always wanted to go on cross country road trips. It was something that I saw friends doing after college. But it became an urgent kind of feeling after the presidential election and I kind of realized that now was the time to do it. So I left a job of 13 years in December 2024 and decided to take savings and really Dive into a very serious project of road trips.

[Alison Stewart]

Oh, that's extraordinary. You quit your job and everything?

[Izzy Barber]

Yeah.

[Alison Stewart]

Oh my gosh. Why did you want to check out the rest of the country?

[Izzy Barber]

Well, I'm very curious and I love to travel. So there was a fun element to it, but then also a serious one as well. I think I was very concerned as so many of us have been in this country, just consuming very disturbing news and feeling like things were moving so fast and not really feeling connected to the news. Just looking at my phone, alone at home and really wanting to get closer to a reality in our country and not really sure where to start, but knowing I had to start somewhere.

[Alison Stewart]

You didn't want to doom scroll any longer? I guess.

[On Deck Representative]

No.

[Izzy Barber]

Yeah. It's both depressing and numbing, so I needed to find another thing to do.

[Alison Stewart]

How did you decide where to go? How did you decide who to take with you?

[Izzy Barber]

Yeah, it was really hard because I think starting it was the hardest part because I really didn't know where to start. So I was kind of lucky that there was a random, kind of lucky coincidence that I had a friend who. A friend of a friend wanted an album cover for an upcoming album he was making and he was trying to get me to do the COVID And he was saying it was inspired by his time living in Tucson in the Sonoran Desert. And I was at first thinking, oh, I don't want to work from photos. But then I was like, amazing. This is actually a place I can start and just go to the desert and paint. So I started not realizing that the border wall was actually going to be a major subject until I was there and started June in June 2025 in Tucson, which is also a really hot, really hot.

[Alison Stewart]

I found out tell how you painted. Did you paint in the moment? Did you take pictures? What did you do?

[Izzy Barber]

So my practice has always been painting from life, which means I start and finish a painting where I am. I'm in the subject that I'm depicting. So on these trips I was traveling around with many different varieties of canvases and panels and pretty kind of pre prepared palettes of colors. And I would just go out and when I saw something that I was like, this is probably a painting, I would just set up where I was and paint.

[Alison Stewart]

How did you decide on oil on canvas?

[Izzy Barber]

I love oil and it's just been something that I've worked with for a long time.

[Alison Stewart]

Now we're talking to Izzy Barber. We're discussing her new solo exhibit called Clay Pigeons. It's on View at the Charles Moffat at 394 through July 31. Did you stick to any particular itinerary you set out?

[Izzy Barber]

So the first trip I. So I started in Tucson, Arizona, and I knew that I needed to give myself a lot of room to kind of meander because I didn't have a clear idea what the paintings were going to be. And it was only once I was kind of deeper into the first trip that I realized certain subjects that were emerging. So on the subsequent trips, I was able to make more of an itinerary, returning to the border in Arizona and then also in Texas. And each trip was a month long. I would be alone for the first three weeks and then get a friend to help drive back to New York.

[Alison Stewart]

What did you expect to find versus what you did find?

[Izzy Barber]

I'm not sure what I expected to find, I think. And then I really couldn't have predicted what I did find. And there's so much, so many experiences and stories that don't make their way into the paintings, but were really valuable kind of life memories for me at this point. Yeah. And I learned a lot about the country, and I think I was surprised by strangers everywhere. And most people are really wonderful on an individual level.

[Alison Stewart]

People must really want to know why

[Interviewer or Co-host]

you're out there with a paintbrush and

[Alison Stewart]

oils and painting whatever's in front of you.

[Izzy Barber]

Yeah, yeah. And I got just like in New York, I mostly have good reactions to when I'm painting out in public.

[Interviewer or Co-host]

What's a place or a stop on your road trips that surprised you the most?

[Izzy Barber]

That surprised me the most. I think the most intense experience was a week I spent in El Paso in Texas. And the first day I was there, I went to a court hearing that was a habeas case for someone detained in the immigration detention center there. And I ended up spending the entire week with the fiance of that man whose hearing it was going with her to immigration hearings and appointments. And that was a very difficult thing to see. But then it was also wonderful to see so many people involved in El Paso who are so dedicated to helping and supporting those who are detained there. So it was a intense, intense week.

[Interviewer or Co-host]

It sounds like you did research as. As well as painting, or were you just being a friend?

[Izzy Barber]

I mean, I think sometimes I use painting as an excuse to go out into the world. So it's. It ends up being. I love to learn. If I could be a student forever, that would be my profession of choice. Yeah.

[Interviewer or Co-host]

Most of these paintings feature landscapes more than people.

[Izzy Barber]

Yes.

[Interviewer or Co-host]

Why do you like Landscapes more, or is this particular project?

[Izzy Barber]

I think it's this particular project. I would say none of the paintings are pure nature. There's always a human element in it. Maybe it's in the distance, a border, wall, but there's always something that the human presence in the landscape is there, even if the actual people aren't always.

[Interviewer or Co-host]

We got a text here. It says, izzy's paintings are so full of energy and mastery of color and value. I'm curious if her paintings are 100% painted on location, especially the ones from cars. We wondered about this as well. There's interstate or highway in Tennessee. What about your paintings when it seems like you're on the road?

[Izzy Barber]

Yeah. So I was alone for the first three weeks of each trip. But then the last week, it was really important for me to drive all the way back to New York. And so I would. A friend driving, and I would be in the passenger seat of the car painting. And the first time I did this was on the night of July 4, 2025. And I painted in the passenger seat. I made, like, a makeshift easel out of cardboard.

[Interviewer or Co-host]

Oh, my gosh.

[Izzy Barber]

And it was really thrilling, I'd say. And there's something about painting that sometimes for me, can feel like a sport as well. I do like the kind of time limit of painting from life and being in situations where I'm not sure what will result from attempting to paint.

[Interviewer or Co-host]

Painting at night must be hard.

[Izzy Barber]

I'm kind of in love with it. I've done it in New York a lot. I think it forces you to really look instead of relying on things you think. You know. During the daytime, you can kind of name every object. But at night, it's a different feeling. But then it's also a different experience of looking.

[Interviewer or Co-host]

I'm talking to Izzy Barber. We're discussing her new solo exhibit called Clay Pigeons. It's on view at the Charles Moffat Gallery at 394 Broadway. It's up through July 31st. Where does Clay Pigeons come from? The title.

[Izzy Barber]

So it's from a Blaze Foley song that I was listening to a lot out west driving. But I also liked to have a title that wouldn't close down the meaning of the paintings. That maybe some people know the title of the song. Maybe they know it as the target practice. Or if you're from New York and you don't know either. Then there's Pigeons in Clay, which it was just nice associations.

[Interviewer or Co-host]

I think the paintings in the gallery, they run from, like, about 15 to 11 inches to 6 by 6 inches. I think there's even smaller paintings than that. Why do you prefer working on this smaller scale?

[Izzy Barber]

It's really that I am so in love with how I make them. I really have found a practice that makes sense for me. So it's all for practical reasons. And to go any larger would compromise the project of looking and the project of painting from life.

[Alison Stewart]

How many paintings did you do on these road trips?

[Izzy Barber]

I did a fair amount. I would say there's a little over half that's hung on the walls in the gallery from what I made.

[Alison Stewart]

What made you decide on the paintings that we see? What was your criteria?

[Izzy Barber]

I spent a long time shuffling them around in my studio. I have a studio that I don't paint in, but I spent a long time sitting with what I made. And sometimes it's a color connection, but they ended up being somewhat based on trip. So in the first room I have some paintings from New York as well as paintings from Arizona and the Southwest. And in the second room, it's a lot of paintings from the Northwest trip, my second trip I took mixed with some Southwest.

[Alison Stewart]

It's interesting, in one of the sort of side rooms, there are sketches of Delaney hall rather than paintings. Why are they included?

[Izzy Barber]

I have a strong drawing practice, and I spend a lot of time drawing when I'm not painting. And it was important for me to connect both to New York area. So, I mean, in New Jersey, it's still very connected to here and also trying to connect it to as close in time as possible. So I made those drawings outside of Delaney hall, where there were these hunger strikes by detainees and a lot of ice, armed ICE faced off against protesters. I made those just, I'd say, three weeks before. Three or four weeks before the show.

[Alison Stewart]

Yeah. It's interesting because you get different perspectives of the debate going on about immigration. You visit the border wall painting, you could stare at it endlessly. Is there anything that you understand about the immigration debate now that you spent time painting the border walls?

[Izzy Barber]

I mean, I have a lot of feelings. I have a lot of feelings, and I think it's a really. I think it's really terrible what's happening right now. And so that's a lot of. A lot of. That's kind of clear for me in a kind of moral way. But there is a complexity in. Especially near the border, in border towns, especially with. In El Paso, there's really only three main career paths. I think there's military, there's border patrol, and I think there's one tech company there. So there is. I think I kind of sat with the. The complexity of a reality there. And there's a lot of, like, Border Patrol that. That's Hispanic, that has even family members who are undocumented. So you'll have a border patrol officer, and then they could possibly have a brother that's undocumented. It's a lot trickier on the personal level than I think, if you might think. Yeah.

[Interviewer or Co-host]

What have you noticed now that you've

[Alison Stewart]

come back to New York? What did you notice after breaking out

[Interviewer or Co-host]

of our little bubble?

[Izzy Barber]

I think in some ways, it's hard to integrate the trips with New York. I think it's something that I've been trying to do actively for myself. But sometimes when I get back after a week, it would almost be like, did I even leave? But in some moments, I can connect. I mean, there are things happening here just as much as they're happening everywhere else.

[Interviewer or Co-host]

The name of the show is Clay Pigeons. You can see at the Charles Moffat Gallery at 394 Broadway through July 13. My guest has been artist Izzy Barber. Izzy, thank you for coming to wnyc.

[Izzy Barber]

Thanks so much for having me.