Simona M. Josan-Barkley

Simona M. Josan-Barkley serves as Associate Professor and Curriculum Coordinator in Painting at Temple University's Tyler School of Art and Architecture, where her practice bridges immigrant experiences with artistic exploration of displacement, memory, and identity construction through material storytelling.

Her academic foundation includes:

• Master of Fine Arts (MFA) from Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (2008)
• Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) from University of Pennsylvania (2001)

Her research investigates how objects function as vessels for past experiences, weaving personal mythology from fragmented recollections of pre-1989 communist Romania and rural Romanian landscapes. Current projects involve drawing series that interrogate nostalgia's role in identity formation, juxtaposing concrete urban environments with countryside memories to expose tensions between individual and collective historical narratives.

Artistic output from 2008-2020 reveals consistent thematic focus across painting and experimental film mediums, with international exhibitions in Philadelphia, Paris, and Romania demonstrating sustained engagement with autobiographical narrative and memory's materiality. Works evolve from early film experiments like "13 Waterfalls" to recent installations such as "LAYERS," maintaining core investigations into displacement while expanding technical approaches.

No scientific awards were documented in the source material.

Student advising relationships and research funding sources remain unreported in available information.

Studio practice operates as her primary creative laboratory without institutional team structures described.