Victoria Barnes was born into a family of well-known artists and professors of art at Indiana University. Her childhood was spent between the Italian hills of Umbria and Bloomington, Indiana. Barnes received her BFA in painting from Indiana University and her MFA at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Barnes worked as an adjunct professor at Drexel University before moving to mid-coast Maine. Today, she and her partner Tim Conte live and work out of their home studio in Liberty, Maine.