Uta Barth (American/German, b.1958), a Contemporary photographer, was born in Berlin, Germany. She received her BA from the University of California, Davis in 1982, and an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1985. Her early work was a combination of painting and photography, which led to the development of her signature style of blurry photographs as seen in Ground (1992–1997) and Field (1995). These works were created by focusing the camera on an empty foreground, thereby casting a haze over the image in the background. This idea of obscuring the image in order to highlight the photographic process has continued throughout her work.
A large part of Barth’s work has been the interplay between the photographs and the environment in which they are shown, as seen in her exhibition at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, OH, in 1997. Barth continued to experiment with obstruction and light, with series such as Sundial (2007–2008) and …and to draw a bright line with light (2011). Barth’s work has been shown all over the world, and is owned by institutions such as The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Tate Gallery in London. In 2007, she received a Broad Foundation fellowship, and was given a grant by United States Artists.
She lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.