Solo exhibition “Picturesque Botany” at HG Fine Art, NYC April 16 – May 14, 2026
Julia Whitney Barnes
Picturesque Botany
April 16 – May 14, 2026
Opening reception: Wednesday, April 29, 5–7pm
Artist’s Talk: Saturday, May 9, 2pm
HG Fine Art is pleased to present Julia Whitney Barnes Picturesque Botany. This marks her first Manhattan solo exhibition. The artist creates lush botanical works that merge careful study with imaginative recombination. Cultivated and wild flora coexist without hierarchy, forming intricate arrangements that hover between documentation and invention. Beginning with unique cyanotype prints on watercolor paper, she builds her surfaces by painting numerous layers of watercolor, gouache, acrylic and ink, often integrating multiple plant species into a single composition. This exhibition incorporates elaborate handmade frames that were inspired by various historic framing motifs created in collaboration with Kurian & Co.
Though grounded in painting, Julia Whitney Barnes’s practice draws on a wide range of media, including printmaking, alternative process and installation, a breadth that informs the layered quality of these works. The results are richly detailed images that honor the floral tradition while expanding it, offering contemporary interpretations of a time-honored genre. Whitney Barnes received her BFA from Parsons School of Design and her MFA from Hunter College. After two decades in New York City, she has spent the past decade living in the Hudson Valley. Julia has exhibited widely in the United States and internationally, and her work has been featured in publications including The New York Times, American Art Collector Magazine, the cover of Chronogram, Hudson Valley Magazine, and Hyperallergic.
HG Fine Art is located at 764 Madison Avenue (between 65th & 66th Streets), New York, NY.
The opening reception is on Wednesday April 29th 5-7pm with an artist’s talk on Saturday, May 9th at 2pm. The gallery is open Fridays from 11am – 4pm and by appointment.
Solo exhibition “It’s Always Sunny Somewhere" at Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson NY March 27 – May 17, 2026
Carrie Haddad Gallery is pleased to present It's Always Sunny Somewhere" featuring highly anticipated new paintings by Julia Whitney Barnes on view March 27th - May 17th.
The artist creates lush botanical works that merge careful study with imaginative recombination. Beginning with unique cyanotype prints on watercolor paper, she builds her surfaces by painting numerous layers of watercolor, gouache, and ink, often integrating multiple plant species into a single composition. Cultivated and wild flora coexist without hierarchy, forming intricate arrangements that hover between documentation and invention.
This exhibition incorporates the artist’s pushing of conventional blue and white cyanotypes to include toned works of deep sepia, warm pale yellow, and brilliant pink.
The artist collaborated with Kurian & Co / Frame & Display to design bespoke frames for each painting with Museum Glass Glazing.
Framed views of each piece will be available soon...
OPENING RECEPTION: SATURDAY, MARCH 28th, 5-7pm
Carrie Haddad Gallery is open each day (except Mondays) from 11am - 5pm at 622 Warren Street, Hudson, NY.
Visiting Artist Lecture at Connecticut College, September 16 at 4:30pm
I will be the Weismann Visiting Artist at Connecticut College this Fall with a lecture that is open to the public on Tuesday, September 16 from 4:30pm - 5:30pm in the Charles Chu Reading Room, Shain Library, 270 Mohegan Avenue, New London, CT.
The college has a 400 acre arboretum and this semester students are taking a course that combines Botany and Studio Art majors along with professors from both departments.
I’ll be speaking about Planting Utopia, The Botanist’s Mural and my studio practice in general.
Book signing + prints at Caramoor Saturday, September 20 at 1:30pm
I am looking forward to returning to the Herb Society of America’s 74th annual event held again this year at the gorgeous Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts.
I will be signing copies of my book “Planting Utopia” at 1:30pm as well as offering a rare chance to choose from limited edition prints in person. (Rain date is Sunday, Sept 21).
Two person show at Kenise Barnes Fine Art, Kent, CT April 26–June 8, 2025
Convert Light Energy – Julia Whitney Barnes and Sarah Morejohn
Dates: April 26 – June 8, 2025
Reception: Saturday April 26, 4 – 6 PM, public invited
Kenise Barnes Fine Art, 7 Fulling Lane, Kent, CT
Gallery hours: Thursday – Saturday 11:00 – 5:30, Sunday 12:00 – 4:00
Kenise Barnes Fine Art is honored to present an exhibition featuring hand-painted cyanotypes by Julia Whitney Barnes and drawings by Sarah Morejohn.
Julia Whitney Barnes is well known for her innovations in Cyanotype (camera-less photographic printing process) paintings. Whitney Barnes’ multi-step process includes harvesting flora (flowers and weeds being equally important) and combining several species into a single composition on photo sensitive cotton paper. After exposing the work to UV light, the resulting blue and white image is carefully hand-painted in many layers of watercolor, gouache, and ink, reanimating the vitality to the ghost of the objects. The artist is most interested in creating work that feels both beautiful and mysterious. Her artwork symbolizes resilience and are the records of the historical moment in which they were made, the process, and the artist’s will and interest in reasserting the presence of the image.
Whitney Barnes recently completed permanent public installations in The Botanist’s Mural, Vassar College/Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Poughkeepsie, NY, Brooklyn Botanical: PS 253 (glass commission), Public Art in Public Schools/Percent for Art, Brooklyn, NY, Planting Utopia (interior installation), Albany International Airport, Albany, NY, Planting Utopia (interior and exterior installation), Shaker Heritage Society, Albany, NY. The artist has received the following honors and awards; Maker-Creator Research Fellowship, Winterthur Museum, Library & Garden (2024-25), Individual Artist Grant, (partnering with Shaker Heritage Society), New York State Council on the Arts (2018), Individual Artist Commission, NY State Decentralization Grant, Arts Mid-Hudson, Poughkeepsie, NY (2015), Gowanus Public Arts Initiative Grant (ArtsGowanus, The Old Stone House & District 39), Brooklyn, NY, Residency with Site-Specific Installation & Fellowship, Fjellerup I Bund I Grund, Fjellerup, Denmark, to name a few. Her work has been featured in Architectural Record, Times Union, The B Magazine, The Jealous Curator, Create Magazine, American Art Collector Magazine and many other publications and podcasts. Julia Whitney Barnes earned her BFA Fine Arts, Painting, Parsons the New School for Design, New York, NY and her MFA Fine Arts, Painting & Combined Media, Hunter College, CUNY, New York, NY. The artist lives and works in NY.
Sarah Morejohn’s fascination with non-linear patterns in nature drives her work. Through drawing, she considers how the relationship to nature is mediated both by objective understanding and subjective imagining of it. Considering the symbolic connections between nature, the body, and climate change Morejohn draws partial six-fold symmetries. By building a drawing line by line, sharp angles soften and wiggle, cell-like shapes minnow along while branches and flowers become a part of the flotsam disconnected from the earth. Figurative snow crystals become interlaced with one another and their environment, jumbling towards their own future transformations. Morejohn’s drawing process is intuitive and organic, artifacts of the process, drips, spills, flaws and mistakes are embraced. By collaging the imperfect pieces of her drawings together the work becomes a metaphor for the ever-changing uncertainties of life.
Sarah Morejohn’s work in in the collections of Heustis Hall, 1% for Art Oregon Arts Commission, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, Echo Laboratory, Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, NY, Ursell Laboratory, Physics Department, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, Project Art & Medical Museum, University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics, Iowa City, IA. She was awarded residencies at Jentel Artist Residency, Banner, WY and Playa Art and Science Residency, Summer Lake, OR. Morejohn earned her BFA in Painting and Drawing, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR. The artist lives and works in CA.
Please contact Lani Ming Holloway, Associate Director, Lani@kbfa.com, 860 560 3085 with inquires or to arrange a preview of the exhibition.
2025 Cyanotype Workshops
I will be leading various cyanotype workshops in 2025 including:
Sanborn Mills, Loudon, NH
5 Day Cyanotype Intensive
May 28 – June 1
On site lodging is limited and the venue can also help coordinate lodging
(including onsite camping)
Link for details and to enroll:
https://sanbornmills.org/workshops/cyanotype-intensive/
Hudson Valley/Chestnut Hill Farm, Saugerties, NY
2 or 3 Day Cyanotype Intensive
July 12 & 13 (optional July 14)
Limited on site lodging is available
Link for details and to enroll:
https://www.juliawhitneybarnes.com/cyanotype-workshops/july12-14
Herb Society of America/Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, Katonah, NY
Intro to Cyanotype
Saturday, September 20 (with a rain date of Sunday, September 21)
Details to be announced this summer
"Brighton Botanical" at PS253 - permanent installation
Julia Whitney Barnes
Brighton Botanical
2024
laminated glass with digitally printer interlayer, PS 253 Addition, Brooklyn
Brighton Botanical is a site-specific artwork created by Julia Whitney Barnes for the lobby of the new P.S. 253 Addition, Brooklyn. The immersive glass installation depicts an array of colorful flowers blossoming across the vestibule windows, measuring over 24 feet wide and 14 feet high. To create the artwork, Whitney Barnes researched plant species from around the world, selecting only those that thrive in Brooklyn. Fifty-three different varieties are included, serving as a metaphor for the diverse student community at P.S. 253. Pollinators, including a hummingbird and several species of butterflies interact with the plants throughout the design. The symbolism of each flower played an important role in the artist’s selection process. Several flowers, such as echinacea, have important medicinal properties; others, like the lotus, are significant in literature; and the sunflower, an essential food source for both humans and animals, symbolizes strength, resilience, happiness and positivity.
Whitney Barnes collaged together an assortment of materials including paintings, prints and photographs to form a beautiful and idyllic field of flowers with varying textures, colors and degrees of transparency. When the design was transferred to glass, the natural effects of light further enhanced the contrasts and harmony among the various blooms. The bright floral hues change throughout the day as the colorful petals and vibrant stalks catch the shifting sunlight. Visible from the street, inside the school’s main lobby, and at eye level from the second floor, Brighton Botanical welcomes visitors and encourages students to examine the carefully rendered flowers from multiple viewpoints and invites them to seek aesthetic, scientific and literary inspiration in the natural beauty that surrounds them.
PS 253 Addition, Brooklyn
Collection of the NYC Department of Education, Public Art for Public Schools
Commissioned by the NYC Department of Education, NYC School Construction Authority Public Art for Public Schools program, in collaboration with NYC Department of Cultural Affairs Percent for Art program
Photography by Sean Hemmerle
Herb Society of America - 73rd Annual Herb Fair - Sept 14 10am–4pm
I am honored to be a presenter at the 73rd Annual Herb Fair on September 14th (rain date Sept 15) at Caramoor in Katonah, NY.
I will be giving a talk about my work and the cyanotype process as well as a participatory workshop from 10–11:30 am. Spaces are limited and preregistration is required through this link.
I will be on site until 4pm at the historic Rosen House signing books and offering limited edition prints as well as showing a few original “Planting Utopia” framed works.
For 73 years, the Herb Fair has celebrated the many ways that herbs enrich our lives and promoted the knowledge and use of herbs through educational programs, research, and community engagement. This one-day event will feature an extraordinary roster of makers and artisans as well as an extensive program of demonstrations, talks, and workshops from leading herb experts. We hope you will join us in celebrating 73 years of the Herb Fair’s legacy, uniting herb enthusiasts, artisans, and families in a shared appreciation for nature’s gifts on September 14, 10:00am – 4:00pm. Rain Date: Sunday, September 15
