Her mother Janie McFarland Bullock[2] looked for work at the local armory and her father was a truck driver.
[7][8] Bullock always felt a need to make things and was always in her parents’ basement doing that, she told artist Najee Dorsey in a 2017 interview.
She hung out with Joe Bailey, Moe Brooker, James Brantley, Charles Searles and Ellen Powell Tiberino to talk about their craft, the lack of exhibition opportunities and other issues.
[18][5][4] Bullock, Tiberino, Reba Dickerson Hill, and Fern Stanford were among the few working Black female artists at the time.
[19][20][10][5][21] Hall incorporated Yoruba culture, philosophy and spirit entities into the core of the center, which attracted artists, dancers and musicians from all over the world.
Her outlook changed, expanding beyond the teachings of her Catholic upbringing to accept the possibility of a world of spirits that allowed her to connect with her African roots.
“I want to express the ritual through dance, the communion of the body and spirit through movement,” she said in an artist statement for her retrospective at the Afro-American Historical and Cultural Museum in 1988.
[21] She described her artwork as “chasing after spirits.”[22] At one point, Bullock painted an image of an African spirit in a mural on the side of a building, which eventually collapsed.
[23][24] Bullock's spirit-based abstract works were dominated by vibrant colors, patterns, rhythmic movement and a cacophony of shapes.
Made of hand-dyed cloth, raffia, shells, beads, rocks and other objects, they were meant to protect her, she told an interviewer in 1999.
[10] With the aid of grants over several decades, Bullock traveled to Ethiopia, Egypt, Mali, Morocco, Senegal, Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire and South Africa.
It’s like getting in touch with yourself.” [14] Bullock produced series made up of multiple works that, she said, allowed her to fully explore a theme.
The others included “Initiation,” “Night Songs,” “Healers,” “Journey,” “Spirit Houses,” “Chasing After Spirits,” and “Bitches Brew.”[10][21][18] Some of her works reflected her feelings toward contemporary issues affecting Black people: “Trayvon Martin, Most Precious Blood,” a teen who was killed by a white Neighborhood Watch volunteer in Florida in 2012, “Katrina," the devastating floods left by that hurricane in New Orleans in 2005, and a portrait of George Floyd, who was killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis, MN, in 2020.
[4] She started researching the series “Jasmine Gardens” during the waning days of Ile Ife, she told an interviewer for an exhibit at the Portland Art Museum in 2017.
A painting in the series, “Dark Gods,” which showed two thick Black characters intertwined in each other's grasp, evoked controversy because of its erotic nature.
[18][10][12][41] In 1966, Bullock joined John Simpson, Walter Edmonds and Percy Ricks in an exhibit titled “Four Negro Artists” at the Philadelphia Gallery.
[43] Bullock participated in a benefit show at a lawn party for SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) in 1975.
[44] In 1969, she was among 200 Black artists in a premier show sponsored by the Philadelphia School District and the Pennsylvania Civic Center Museum.
The show featured some of the top names in the country, including Ellen Powell Tiberino, Horace Pippin, Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, Jacob Lawrence, Benny Andrews, Columbus Knox, Roland Ayers, Romare Bearden, Avel de Knight, Barkley Hendricks, Paul Keene, Raymond Saunders, Louis B. Sloan, Ed Wilson, Henry Ossawa Tanner and Joshua Johnson.
[11] Also in 1975, she participated in “Spirits of Forgotten Ancestors” at the Walnut Street Theater, cosponsored by the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Department of Urban Outreach.
It consisted of paintings, prints and jewelry by Black artists, including Avel de Knight, Bill Howell, Peg Alston and Wendy Wilson.
[21] In 2005, she was among 41 Black artists in “Chemistry of Color: The Harold A. and Ann R. Sorgenti Collection of African American Art” at PAFA.
[4][50][51] In 2010, Sande Webster Gallery featured her works in a group show of women artists titled "Women's Work: A Group Show" that included artists Martina Johnson-Allen, Maya Freelon, Betsy Casanas, Nannette Acker Clark, Alice Oh, Heather Pieters, Doris Nogueira-Rogers, Marta Sanchez and Kathleen Spicer.
[52] In 2016, the La Salle University Art Museum hosted an exhibit titled “Barbara Bullock: Chasing After Spirits.”[4] In 2022, the List Gallery at Swarthmore College held an exhibit of selected works in “Ubiquitous Presence,” which included oil paintings, sculptures, book arts, prints, altars and mixed media.
"[53] She created “Journey Series #4, Ethiopia” in 1999 for the African American Museum in Philadelphia, commissioned by Chivas Regal as part of its Perspectives program.