46 A CCIB PUBLICATION  Fall 2026
ART MEETS COMMERCE
D
ee Barsy has always been an artist. From a young 
age through her teenage years, Barsy used art 
to explore her insecurities and work through 
the growing pains of youth. After high school, 
she worked with children and youth through 
Graffiti Art Programming, leading free art workshops in 
Winnipeg’s north end, before becoming an assistant along-
side young artists who had recently completed their BFAs 
at the University of Manitoba. 
It was that experience that would ultimately determine the 
trajectory of Barsy’s own career. “I was exposed to all these 
art-school students, and one of the people I was working 
with suggested to me that maybe I’m an artist, and maybe 
I should consider art school,” says Barsy, an Indigenous 
adoptee who grew up in Winnipeg and whose biological 
family is from Skownan First Nation.
Barsy heeded that advice and entered a university art 
program, but with no idea exactly what kind of art she would 
be drawn to. In the end, she gravitated toward painting. It 
was once she completed her studies that she became deter-
mined to build a career as an artist. 
“After I graduated, I was eavesdropping on a couple of profes-
sors talking. They were talking about how many artists they 
could think of in Winnipeg who made a living off of their art 
and the number was quite low,” says Barsy, noting that it was 
this conversation that inspired her even more to succeed. 
She recalls thinking to herself: “I want that for myself; I want 
to be one of those people. That drove me towards having 
that as a goal.”
INITIAL STRUGGLES
Turning a love of art into a viable career was a struggle at first. 
Barsy remembers selling her art for very little money at the 
BRINGING JOY TO 
DIFFERENT SPACES
W i n n i p e g - b a s e d  a r t i s t  D e e  B a r s y  s e t s 
h e r  b a r  h i g h  t o  r e a ch  h e r  c a r e e r  g o a l s
By Nikita Weiss Day

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