Julia Whitney Barnes is an artist living in Poughkeepsie, NY who works in a variety of media from cyanotypes, watercolor, gouache, oil paintings, stained glass, murals, and site-specific installations. Born in Newbury, VT, she spent two decades in Brooklyn/NYC before moving to the Hudson Valley in 2015. She received a BFA from Parsons School of Design and MFA from Hunter College. Whitney Barnes works in a variety of media from cyanotypes, watercolor, combined media works on paper, oil paintings, glass, ceramic sculptures, murals, site-specific installations, and limited-edition prints. She has exhibited widely in the United States and internationally including the Albany International Airport /Shaker Heritage Society, Albany, New York; Dorksy Museum, New Paltz, NY; Ely Center of Contemporary Art, New Haven, CT; Hancock Shaker Museum, Berkshires, MA; Woodstock Artists Association & Museum (WAAM), Woodstock, NY; Institute of Contemporary Art, Portland, ME; Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, NY; Kenise Barnes Fine Art, Kent, CT; Garvey|Simon NY, New York, NY and Galerie Julian Sander, Cologne, Germany. Her work is in numerous private and public collections.
Whitney Barnes is the recipient of fellowships from the New York State Council on the Arts, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Arts Mid-Hudson, Abbey Memorial Fund for Mural Painting/National Academy of Fine Arts, and the Gowanus Public Art Initiative, among others. She completed two significant commissions in 2024 including an immersive double sided glass artwork for Public Art for Public Schools/NYC Percent for Art in Brooklyn, NY and a room-wide mural for the new Vassar College Institute in Poughkeepsie, NY in 2024.