Barbara Lidfors grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota, across the street from the college where her father was an art professor. She discovered early on that something magical happened whenever she sat at their kitchen table strewn with colored pencils, paints and paper.

Art continued to be important to her in the ensuing years as she honed her technical art skills and shared them in various teaching situations. In 2001 she earned an MFA degree from Vermont College of Norwich University and began painting full-time. The many decades she lived in Germany were years that focused her artistic direction and opened up exciting opportunities to exhibit her work in over 100 solo and group shows throughout Germany, the United States and 5 other countries.

After 38 years in Germany, Barbara moved back to her home state of Minnesota and to her studio and home in Minnetonka.

I am a figurative and landscape painter who paints the allure of everyday moments and celebrates the extraordinary in the people and places around me.

My figurative paintings tell stories of people whose daily interactions have universal appeal and meaning.  My nature paintings are naturalistic in their point of departure but evocatively subjective in the atmosphere and mood they communicate, thus offering visual metaphors for personal experiences.

Recently returned to my Minnesota roots after decades of involvement in the German art world, I am enjoying rediscovering the specific beauty of Minnesota’s people and natural spaces. Apparently my artistic impulse finds joy in painting the people and places that I encounter wherever I happen to be. I look for significance, beauty and meaning in the life around me and I gladly share this with those who view my works.

Exhibit will be on display Friday, May 30 through Friday, July 11.

6-8 p.m. Thursday, June 26 in the Cedar Room at the Plymouth Community Center (Event Wing).

It will be an open house format with light refreshments provided. The reception is free and open to the public.