"Planting Utopia" Book Talk at Kenise Barnes Fine Art (Kent, CT) on Saturday, October 14 at 11am

I am honored that Kenise Barnes Fine Art is hosting a book signing at the gallery on Saturday, October 14 starting at 11 AM (at 7 Fulling Lane, Kent, CT).  I will also have “Planting Utopia” prints with me so this will be a rare opportunity to select prints in person.

I have been working intensely on the 136-page hardcover book for over a year and am delighted that it is now available. You can preview/order a signed copy of the book here: http://www.juliawhitneybarnes.com/planting-utopia-book-preorder

There is also an extra special version of the book that was produced in an edition of 50 and each one will be hand numbered and signed. The A4 size hardcover book contains citrine color endpaper inside the front and back cover, a yellow/green pattern head & tail band, Smyth sewn binding, along with 100 lb satin paper throughout the book. These books are a wonderful way to lend extra support to the project and have your own unique version.

You can also see my available work with the gallery here: https://www.kbfa.com/artists/122-julia-whitney-barnes/works/

"Planting Utopia" book available for preorder

This artist's book has been in the works for the past 18 months and I’m thrilled that it is now available for preorder. The 132 page hardcover book has been in the works for over a year and I’m honored to have included essays by Kathy Greenwood of Albany Airport Art & Culture, Johanna Batman and Lorraine Weiss of Shaker Heritage Society as well as an essay by Sarah Margolis-Pineo who is a wealth of knowledge about the Shakers and gift drawings.

The book includes images of my process, the herbarium I made from the 150 medicinal plants at the Shaker site, installation views, individual works, historic gift drawings, and has been a consuming labor of love.

Each pre-ordered book will be signed by me and be shipped this fall.

6 page feature in German Magazine "Herzstück" July/August 2023

Many thanks to “Herzstück” for featuring my work in their summer issue including selections from “Planting Utopia” and my recent solo exhibition in Cologne at Galerie Julian Sander.

Here is a rough/google translate version of the article:

The treasury of blossom souls

Artist Julia Whitney Barnes creates enchanted plant worlds 

The flower arrangements reminiscent of historical Herbaria as we see them in Natural History Museums – only these ones radiate a lot more aesthetics, mystery and magic off. Which stories they have to tell? And are they actually made from dried plants like a classic herbarium? 

If we look at Julia Whitney Barnes' pictures, we embark on a mystical journey around the world. They are reminiscent of historical herbaria on which dried flowers were pasted, collected and identified. At first glance, however, it is difficult to say: are Julia's flowers actually real or painted?!

Behind the pictures is a long creative process that requires patience and attention to detail. The 44-year-old collects herbs and flowers in her home in the Hudson Valley (New York State), which she drapes and presses beautifully.

From the dried flower arrangements, she makes so-called "cyanotypes" on cotton paper. It is an old photographic fine printing process that is based on iron (and not on silver as in normal photographs). This is how blue negatives come to life on the cotton paper. Since sunlight would start the complex exposure process, she withdraws to the attic studio of her house at night. Next, she applies layers of watercolor, gouache, and ink—even preferably at night, when her husband and two children are asleep: “On a clear night, filtered through my reflection in a skylight, I can see the full moon surrounded by thousands of sparkling ones Stars. My skylights become portals to heavenly space that inspire my nocturnal activities,” says Julia – which also reminds us of her multi-layered paintings! "I work in solitude while everyone else in the family is sound asleep, but I never feel alone. I am surrounded by the night sky, music that stirs my soul and a colourful, vibrant watercolor and gouache palette.”

Her special "nightshade plants" often appear as if they consist of three-dimensional pressed flowers - an illusion. "When my work is viewed in person, it is more obvious that the work only contains layers of pigment," she says. If you are interested, you can admire some of her works of art in the Julian Sander gallery in Cologne (see www.galeriejuliansander.de). "I want each painting to be familiar and yet be a little out of time," the artist describes it. We think she succeeds. Her pictures resemble a glimpse into the treasury of mysteriously enchanted flower souls. Which one do you like best?

Solo exhibition at the Armour-Stiner Octagon House

Thrilled to share that I have a new body of work that was made in collaboration with my wonderful framer Kurian & Co / Frame & Display on view at the Armour-Stiner Octagon House in Irvington, NY on view in “Victorian Spring” from April 28 – June 30, 2023 and “The Octagon House: A Victorian Summer Home” July 1 – September 24, 2023.

You can see details about each piece (including the frames) in the viewing room here and can use this link to book a tour.

Julia Whitney Barnes
in collaboration with Kurian Frame & Display
“The Octagon House: A Victorian Summer Home” Historic Landscape & House Tour
Tours by appointment through September 24, 2023

The Armour-Stiner Octagon House
45 West Clinton Ave, Irvington, NY
To reserve a tour please visit: www.armourstiner.com

Every element of these framed works on paper was inspired by the Armour-Stiner Octagon House and surrounding gardens. Many years ago, Julia dreamt about a pink octagonal house and it was such a vivid dream she never forgot that vision. Having no idea one existed in reality, she was awestruck when walking along the Croton Aqueduct trail in 2019 shecame upon the house peeking through the trees. When the Lombardi family invited Julia to create this body of work for the 3rd floor of their spectacular home, it was thrilling for her to meander each room and make notes, photographs, and sketches. After documenting hundreds of architectural features, plants, changing foliage, seasonal light and the 360 degree views from the windows and porch she set out to create art that could feel at home here. Early on in the process, Julia invited Gerald Kurian to collaborate on the exhibition to craft frames that would suit this this unique setting. The plants that populate each work are featured in elements within the house such as the etched glass windows and porch details, the foxglove garden, the glorious grounds, the historic greenhouse, and floral patterns seen on various surfaces throughout each floor. The Egyptian Revival room was filled with inspirational highlights, which include the patterns and patina on the handmade gold frames.  The pair of arched top works were based on the shape of the windows on the 3rdfloor (including in the Curio room), and the round windows with octagon shaped openings on the 4th floor inspired the tondo frame.

“In these works on paper, I approach each growing thing with equal importance regardless of whether it is a weed, rare species, wildflower, or cultivated flower. Most works have several species fused into one composition, often to the point where the exact plants depicted are open to interpretation. Each composition starts as a blue and white print onto watercolor paper and then I paint in many layers of color pigment. I am most interested in creating objects that feel both beautiful and mysterious. I want each cyanotype painting to be familiar yet slightly outside of time.” 
 – Julia Whitney Barnes

Cyanotype is a camera-less photographic printing process invented in 1842 by scientist and astronomer, Sir John Hirschel, which produces a cyan-blue print when a non-toxic chemistry-coated surface is exposed to sunlight. Through the use of this medium, Whitney Barnes manipulates physical impressions of plants grown locally in her Hudson Valley garden and other nearby areas, along with intricately cutout photographic negatives. Each selected flower is preserved through a pressing process in which she dissects and shapes each form—akin to a specimen from a natural history museum—and then lays everything out in massive flat files in her attic studio. Given that sunlight starts the exposure process with cyanotype chemistry, she carefully arranges each elaborate composition at night and utilizes long exposures under natural or UV light to create the final prints. Once the unique cyan imagery is fused, she meticulously paints the exposed watercolor paper with multiple layers of watercolor, ink and gouache. Each cyanotype is created by the power of light, inspiring viewers to look at these very recognizable images in new and different ways.

A selection from the limited edition of prints is available in the gift shop and the original framed works are available through Julia’s site as well as additional print options.  

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. She has exhibited widely in the United States and internationally including the Dorksy Museum, New Paltz, NY; Ely Center of Contemporary Art, New Haven, CT; 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 most recently a solo exhibition at Galerie Julian Sander in Cologne, Germany. She was awarded fellowships from 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.

Born in Newbury, VT, Julia Whitney Barnes spent two decades in Brooklyn, before moving to the Hudson Valley in 2015. She received her BFA from Parsons School of Design and her MFA from Hunter College. Whitney Barnes has created site-specific installations at the Albany International Airport, Albany, NY; Brookfield Place/Winter Garden, New York, NY; Arts Brookfield, Brooklyn, NY, the Wilderstein Sculpture Biennial, Rhinebeck, NY; Shaker Heritage Society, Albany NY; The Trolley Barn/Fall Kill Creative Works, Poughkeepsie, NY; GlenLily Grounds, Newburgh, NY; ArtsWestchester, White Plains, NY; Gowanus Public Arts Initiative, Brooklyn, NY; Space All Over/Fjellerup Bund i Bund & Grund, Fjellerup, Denmark; Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York, NY; Brooklyn School of Inquiry, Brooklyn, NY; New York City Department of Transportation, New York, NY; and Figment Sculpture Garden, Governors Island, NY and among other locations. Whitney Barnes was awarded a glass commission for NYC Public Art for Public Schools/Percent for Art that is slated to be unveiled Fall 2024. To learn more about the artist visit: www.juliawhitneybarnes.com or @juliawhitneybarnes on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.

Kurian & Co. / Frame & Display is a framing and custom fabrication operation founded in 2009 that is based in an eight thousand square foot workshop in Yonkers, NY. The team is led by founder and proprietor Gerald Kurian, who began working in the picture framing industry in the early 1990's. Since relocating to New York City in 1997, Gerald has collaborated extensively with both artists and galleries to produce shows, while also working with individuals to create unique and special frames, exhibition furniture, and custom-fabricated elements to suit their needs. Gerald and his team of skilled craftspeople have extensive experience across woodworking, finishing, fabrication, construction, art handling, conservation and installation. Many of them are artists themselves with their own studio practice; they thus bring to their work at Kurian & Co. a particular sensitivity gleaned from working with and around art in a variety of settings.

In addition to making frames, Gerald and his team are also highly skilled in the archival handling of artwork, and they use museum grade standards of conservation framing while fitting art into frames. Their extensive experience with a wide range of archival techniques and materials will ensure that your artwork is handled and preserved for display in the best way possible for now and the future. To learn more visit: www.kurianframe.co or @kurianframe on Instagram.

Interview in Create Magazine - Issue 33 - December 2022

Thank you Create Magazine and Dina Brodsky for featuring my work in issue #33. You can order a digital or print copy of the full magazine here: https://www.createmagazine.com/product/create-magazine-issue-33-digital

You can read the full article here: https://www.createmagazine.com/blog/julia-whitney-barnes

Solo Exhibition with Galerie Julian Sander, Cologne, Germany

I am thrilled to share that my first European solo exhibition will be on view at Galerie Julian Sander from November 17, 2022 through January 27, 2023

Details below and on the gallery’s site: https://galeriejuliansander.de/artist/julia-whitney-barnes/

“House & Garden” curated by Kenise Barnes, at Washington Art Association & Gallery

House & Garden

September 3 – October 9, 2022

Washington Art Association                                           

4 Bryan Memorial Plaza, Washington Depot, CT 06794             

Curated by Kenise Barnes

Reception: Saturday September 3, 4 – 6 public invited                 

Hours: Wednesday – Saturday 10 – 5, Sunday 12 – 4

Contact: Kenise Barnes, Kenise@kbfa.com

Washington Art Association, info@washingtonartassociation.org

Artists:

Mio Akashi                    Yayoi Asoma

Julia Whitney Barnes     Lisa Dahl         

KK Kozik                       Kristin Lamb     

Melanie Parke               Jill Parisi          

Roxa Smith                   Roger Ricco     

The connotation of home is emotionally charged, the very word “home “makes us pause.

Tenderness for our home and garden has rooted more deeply in the past few years. The ten artists in this exhibition make work that is distinctly individual, what unites them is that their work conveys taking care, cultivating growth, and the being the custodian of memories.  

The artists in the exhibition work in various media including ornately decorated hand-colored and cut prints, pattern paintings who’s digital and collage elements add meaning and contemporary context, as well as    several painters working in the more traditional medium of paint. The show includes two photographers whose flower photographs are elegant elegies to single specimens and an artist whose work is a hybrid of photography and painting.

Yayoi Asoma’s paintings are built through exploring the notion of recollection. The artist is interested in how memory works as a constructive process that reproduces, filters, alters and interprets the past. The work speaks through the familiarity of the home, where spaces of our everyday lives entwine with the memories and associations of our experiences. While a house is often referred to as a home, the concept of "home" is broader than a physical dwelling. Home is often a place of refuge and safety. Home is an experience as much as a specific place. 

Asoma received her BFA in painting from Rhode Island School of Design and her MFA in visual arts from Mason Gross School of the Arts. Her exhibitions include Yayoi Asoma: Curated by Stephen Westfall, CUE Art Foundation, New York, NY; The Grass is Greener on the Other Side...So What?, Leo Fortuna Gallery, Hudson, NY; Artist As Teacher, The Studio, Armonk, NY, Remembering is Everything, Alter Space, San Francisco, CA; H-Art Gallery, Albany, NY. Her work has been reviewed in the New York Times and Hyperallergic. Asoma is an adjunct professor at Manhattanville College, teaches studio programs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and in NYC public schools through Studio in a School. Asoma lives and work Brooklyn and New Milford, CT.

Julia Whitney Barnes’ work is a hybrid that uses both painting and a camera-less photography method called cyanotype. To make her paintings Whitney Barnes selects plants grown in her own Hudson Valley garden which she preserves through a pressing process in which she dissects and shapes each form—akin to specimen from a natural history museum. These flowers combined along with intricately cutout photographic negatives are used to create the cyanotype. After the photograph is made, Whitney Barnes reanimates the white space left by the solar-plate process with watercolors.

Julia Whitney Barnes has been awarded numerous residencies, grants, and public art projects. Her work has been featured in publications and blogs such as The New York Times, Chronogram, Hyperallergic, Apartment Therapy, Flavorpill to name a few. The artist earned her MFA Fine Arts at Hunter College, and her BFA Fine Arts at Parsons the New School for Design. She lives and works in the Poughkeepsie, NY.
 

Lisa Dahl is a mixed-media artist whose work addresses the home and the American Dream. By simplifying the structure of a house to a basic form, Dahl explores the traditional ideas we attach to home ownership as well as what these buildings evoke for us, In several of Lisa Dahl’s small mixed media painting the “home’ image is repurposed from magazine reproductions of homes in the real estate section. Dahl manipulated these found images by adding paint turning hedges, rooftops, and lawns into psychedelic patterned abstractions.

Lisa Dahl’s has been honored with grants, residencies and commissions form NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, Design Trust for Public Space, The MacDowell Colony, The Parrish Art Museum, and many others. Her work has been highlighted in Art Agenda, The New York Times, The Daily Voice, Chronogram, Apartment Therapy, and many other publications. Dahl earned her MFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University, and her BA from Bowdoin College. She lives and works in Staten Island.

KK Kozik painting Wallflower epitomizes the theme and title of this exhibition. This large canvas brings together an interior wall decorated with paintings of garden flowers. As evidenced by this work the artist’s connection to home, garden, and art is personal and tender.

Kozik’s work is in the collections of Smithsonian Museum, William Benton Museum, Florida State Museum of Fine Arts, Copelouzos Family Art Museum, Athens, Greece, General Electric Corporation, Harvard Business School, Library of Congress, Progressive Corporation, and others private and public collections in the US and abroad. Kozik has received many honors and grants including William and Susan Piccotte Award, Connecticut Artist Fellowship in Painting, Commission, “Flights of Imagination,” Fitchburg Art Museum and Fitchburg State University, Magnesium Electron, NA Prize, North American Print Biennial, Commission, MTA Arts for Transit, Rockaway Park Beach 116th St Subway Station, Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation Grant. Her paintings have been exhibited extensively in the US and featured in publications such as The New York Times, Artforum, ArtNet, The Brooklyn Rail and The Village Voice. She earned her MA from Syracuse University and BA from University of Virginia and studied at Edinburgh University. KK Kozik lives and works in Sharon, CT where she also curates ICEHOUSE Project Space.

Kristin Lamb says, “I make labor-intensive images of labor-intensive textiles and patterns”. Lamb is engaged in the process of re-painting a textile or pattern often from cross stitch, embroidery vintage, French wallpaper or occasionally from her own photography of interiors and landscapes. In her Remix series Lamb begins with a digital collage taken from earlier embroidery paintings, cropped, and remixed to near abstraction before being over-painted with labor and care. 

Lamb has been awarded numerous residencies including Golden Foundation, Wassaic Project and Soaring Gardens. Her work has been exhibited extensively in the US. Lamb’s work has been featured in many magazines and blogs including Hyperallergic, ArtNews, ArtScope, and The Jealous Curator. She earned an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design, A teaching certificate from Brown University, A Post Baccalaureate degree from School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and a BA from Brown University. Kristin Lamb lives and works in Providence, RI.

Michigan artist Melanie Parke works pay homage to familiar domesticity and bucolic life. Her interiors and still life paintings of flowers linger and inspire like a memory of an afternoon spent with and old friend. The artist reconstructs familiar interiors and filters them through the ideology of memory. Her subjects often center on flowers, birds, decorative objects, gardens, and domestic settings with the intent to create safe places for pleasure. Parke utilizes sentiment to craft as a domestic locus and seeks visual lushness by alternating tonal moods and vivid ornamentation to build on a sensation of memory which conjures both comfort and longing.

Parke’s paintings have been exhibited widely through the US. She has been a visiting artist three times at The American Academy in Rome and has been awarded several other residencies including in Maine, California, and Tuscany. Her work has been featured by The Huffington Post, Hyperallergic, Classic Chicago Magazine and Painters Table to name a few. Parke earned her B.F.A. The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and studied at Herron School of Art. The artist lives and work in rural Michigan.  

Jill Parisi is a masterful printmaker who uses many methods and materials to create flora and fauna of imaginary ecosystems. Like a jazz musician, she is riffing on nature, taking colors and structures from a variety of species and places, and reconfiguring them in novel ways. Much of her work reacts to viewer proximity, an observant viewer is rewarded with remarkably detailed patterns, or with the discovery of other smaller and more delicate “species” hidden beneath the first layer. Materials such as translucent tissue-weight papers, feathers or glass inform these fantastic and ephemeral botanical species.

Jill Parisi’s work has been exhibited widely including in International Print Center New York’s New Prints exhibitions, The Krakow Printmaking Triennials, the International Print Network’s Graphically Extended exhibition, the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville, and at Medjeback, in Falun, Sweden. Her work is in various private and public collections in Italy, China, Portugal, and others including University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital, Joan H. Tisch Center for Women’s Health, and New York University Langone. She completed public art commissions for New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Arts for Transit program, and for DC Government Services. She was the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Printmaking/Drawing/Artists’ Books in 2005. Parisi earned a BFA and an MFA in Printmaking at the State University of New York at New Paltz. She lives and works in New York State.

Roger Ricco’s background as a painter has an enormous influence on his photographic vision. Working in rural Woodstock, NY, Ricco finds sources for his work in his own backyard. Bits of nature, stones, shells, flora, feathers, and the like are assembled into tabletop sets. Further transformations are orchestrated by Ricco’s use of painted backdrops, dramatic lighting, and by shooting film through a variety of transparent screens. His humble subjects are reborn in ethereal and dramatic compositions. Ricco was selected to be the Diane Marek Visiting Artist (with exhibition) at the Cress Gallery of the University of Tennessee. He was awarded The Rome Prize in painting by The American Academy in Rome. His work is in numerous private and public collections, including the Museum of Photographic Art, San Diego, CA.

Included in the exhibition are four floral works by photographer Mio Akashi from her "One Stem, One Branch" series. This body of work was inspired by the philosophical and symbolic tea flower arrangement created by Sen no Rikya who is the founder of the Japanese Tea Ceremony. Akashi selects one stem or branch from the dozens growing in her backyard in Litchfield County and perfectly captures them against a simple white background. Her photographs are beautifully minimalist, each single specimen becoming an icon.

Akashi’s photographs have been exhibited throughout CT and NY and are in several private and public collections. She Graduated earned her BFA from Fashion Institute of Technology and practiced as an interior designer for many years before concentrating on her fine art. She was born in Japan and lives in New York and CT.  

Roxa Smith’s paintings are anchored in themes of quotidian domestic settings. Influenced by her Venezuelan upbringing, a passion for lush color, intricate patterns, and naïve and outsider art dominates her work. Smith metaphorically layers elements in the work to create tableaus steeped with personal symbolism that explore nuances of intimate living spaces. Drawing from the familiar, she navigates between seeing, describing, interpreting, and inventing. These colorful compositions with their shifting, oscillating planes present recognizable, yet idiosyncratic off-kilter worlds. Infused with a unique, magical vibrancy, their vivacity acts as a foil to the darkness and worries of reality.

Born and raised in Venezuela, Smith studied Western Art History and German at Bowdoin College and received a Postgraduate degree in Fine Art at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Smith’s work has been exhibited throughout the US. Including a sold-out show at C24 Gallery (NYC) in 2022. Smith has received a range of awards, residencies, and fellowship including the Vermont Studio Center, New York Foundation for the Arts, Basil Alkazi Fellowship at the Sheldon Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska. Additionally, she has been published in many magazines and newspapers such as Interlocutor magazine, Viceversa magazine, New American Paintings, Studio Visit Magazine, Artspace magazine, New York Times, and HuffPost (2012). Roxa Smith is represented by C24Gallery, NYC. She lives and works in NYC.

The exhibition curator is the owner and director of Kenise Barnes Fine Art, Kent, CT, and a board member at Washington Art Association.

https://www.washingtonartassociation.org/exhibitions/house-and-garden

Hours:
Wed - Sat 10 am - 5 pm
Sun 12 pm - 4 pm

4 Bryan Memorial Plaza
Washington Depot, CT 06794

860.868.2878

info@washingtonartassociation.org

"Planting Utopia" Two site-responsive installations that reflect a confluence of shaker gift drawings and herb cultivation

The installations will remain on view through 2023

Planting Utopia: Artist Julia Whitney Barnes’ Site-Specific Installations Connect Albany International Airport and the Shaker Heritage Society

(Wednesday, May 25, 2022, Albany, NY) The Albany International Airport and the Shaker Heritage Society announce a series of events and installations stemming from a year-long collaboration with artist Julia Whitney Barnes. A public reception on Saturday, June 25, from 1–4pm at both the Airport and the nearby Shaker Heritage Society, will introduce guests to both installations and provide an opportunity to meet the artist and learn more about her research and creative process. Transportation between the two sites will be provided by an Airport shuttle. Additionally, the exhibition in the Airport’s Concourse A Gallery, opening July 16, will tell the story of Planting Utopia, and the Shaker Heritage Society will host an artist-led cyanotype-printing workshop on July 23. Reproduction images and a checklist can be accessed by clicking this link: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/cj4bwes1ye0f1dcdkmwsk/h?dl=0&rlkey=cufrsxgai7wt6joqo6i4ewkfj

Beginning in the spring of 2021, Poughkeepsie-based artist Julia Whitney Barnes photographed and collected specimens from over 150 plants growing in the herb garden at Shaker Heritage Society, the site of the first Shaker settlement in the United States. The herb garden, which reflects the Shakers’ important herbal medicine industry, and historic Shaker ‘gift’ or ‘spirit’ drawings are the inspiration and source imagery for a series of prints on view at the Airport, and the companion site-specific installation at the Shaker Heritage Society, located a short walk from the Airport.

Whitney Barnes often works with the cyanotype process, which is an early cameraless photographic process that was invented in 1842, the same era the gift drawings were being created. Objects or transparencies are placed on paper or fabric coated with cyanotype chemistry and then exposed to light to create various hues of white to light blue silhouettes on rich, blue backgrounds. Through the use of this cyanotype medium, Whitney Barnes manipulates pressed and dried plants from the herb garden along with intricately cut photographic negatives. For her works on paper, the unique blue and white prints are just the beginning and then she paints in many layers of watercolor, gouache and ink.

CONTACT:

Kathy Greenwood Director, Exhibitions & Programs 518-242-2243 kgreenwood@albanyairport.com albanyairportartandcultureprogram.com

At the Shaker Heritage Society’s 1856 Drying House, Whitney Barnes’ installation includes temporary murals on the exterior of the historic brick building, with stark blue and white silhouettes of herbs in bloom climbing the outside of the red brick walls. The complementary interior elements are cyanotype prints on fabric and hanging bunches of herbs from the garden. The mural and installation will remain on view through the summer of 2023.

For the installation at the Albany International Airport, Whitney Barnes developed a series of eight cyanotype paintings on paper with plants collected from the Shaker herb garden. Their compositions were based upon nineteenth-century Shaker ‘gift’ or ‘spirit’ drawings that were complex, divinely inspired revelations of spiritual perfection, often symmetrical and including botanical elements. These eight original paintings were reproduced on aluminum panels and hung within a light-filled pedestrian corridor linking the new south parking garage with the ticketing area. The installation will remain on view for three to five years.

Beginning July 16, the Airport will also host a six-month long exhibition, called Planting Utopia, in its post- security Concourse A Gallery, that will present the highlights of this collaboration, including original artwork, preparatory sketches, and a documentary video.

The Shaker Heritage Society will host a special cyanotype workshop with the artist on July 23 from 10am – 3:30pm.

A catalog of the installations and exhibition will be forthcoming.

The installation at the Shaker Heritage Society was funded by the New York State Council on the Arts Support for Artists Program; the site-specific project and exhibition at Albany International Airport was commissioned by the Airport through its Art & Culture Program. The catalog is funded by Albany International Airport and The Michele L. Vennard Hospitality Grant Program of the Albany County Convention and Visitor’s Bureau Fund of the Community Foundation for the Greater Capital Region

About Julia Whitney Barnes

Julia Whitney Barnes is an artist living in Poughkeepsie, NY who works in a variety of media from cyanotypes, watercolor, oil paintings, ceramic sculptures, murals, and site-specific installations. She has exhibited widely in the United States and internationally including the Dorksy Museum, New Paltz, NY, Ely Center of Contemporary Art, New Haven, CT, Woodstock Artists Association & Museum (WAAM), Woodstock, NY, Institute of Contemporary Art, Portland, ME, Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, NY, Kenise Barnes Fine Art, Kent, CT and Garvey|Simon NY, New York, NY. She was awarded fellowships from 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. Born in Newbury, VT, Julia Whitney Barnes spent two decades in Brooklyn, before moving to the Hudson Valley in 2015. She received her BFA from Parsons School of Design and her MFA from Hunter College. Whitney Barnes has created site-specific installations Brookfield Place/Winter Garden, New York, NY; Arts Brookfield, Brooklyn, NY, the Wilderstein Sculpture Biennial, Rhinebeck, NY; The Trolley Barn/Fall Kill Creative Works, Poughkeepsie, NY; GlenLily Grounds, Newburgh, NY; ArtsWestchester, White Plains, NY; Gowanus Public Arts Initiative, Brooklyn, NY; Space All Over/Fjellerup Bund i Bund & Grund, Fjellerup, Denmark; Lower Manhattan Cultural Council/Sirovitch Senior Center, New York, NY; Brooklyn School of Inquiry, Brooklyn, NY; New York City Department of Transportation, New York, NY; and Figment Sculpture Garden, Governors Island, NY and among other locations. Whitney Barnes was awarded a glass commission for NYC Public Art for Public Schools/Percent for Art that is slated to be completed in 2023. To learn more about the artist visit: www.juliawhitneybarnes.com or @juliawhitneybarnes on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.

About the Albany International Airport Art & Culture Program

Since 1998, the Albany International Airport’s Art & Culture Program has sought to showcase the cultural vitality of New York’s Capital Region through exhibitions and installations within the Airport’s terminal. Such presentations enhance the experience of airport travelers and foster the advancement of a thriving creative community. The Program has become a cornerstone for demonstrating the breadth and quality of the arts throughout the Region as well as a resource for learning about local culture. Through exhibitions presented in the Albany International Airport Gallery and Concourse A Gallery, the Exhibition Case Program, large-scale installations, free public programs and tours, the Art & Culture Program has extended the reach of area artists and museums to an audience of more than three million people each year.

CONTACT:

Kathy Greenwood Director, Exhibitions & Programs 518-242-2243 kgreenwood@albanyairport.com albanyairportartandcultureprogram.com

About the Shaker Heritage Society

Since 1977, the Shaker Heritage Society (SHS) has stewarded the site of America's first Shaker settlement. The Shakers’ Utopian, communal society was built on a framework of equality of men and women and all races, and valued innovation and the pursuit of perfection through everyday work. The SHS mission is to enrich the Capital Region by engaging the community with the founding home and enduring values of the Shakers. Established in 1776, the historic site is a small oasis of Shaker buildings in a tranquil, natural landscape. The site is located within walking distance of both Albany Airport (built on former Shaker land) and the Ann Lee Pond Nature and Historic Preserve. The museum is open Tuesday- Saturday from March through late December. The grounds are open to the public from dawn to dusk throughout the year. SHS offers a wide variety of tours, workshops, and programs for youth and adults. The Society’s annual craft fairs are a tradition that support over 100 regional artisans. The 1848 Meeting House and 1915 Barn are venues for both community programs and private events.

CONTACT:

Johanna Batman
Executive Director 518-456-7890 director@shakerheritage.org shakerheritage.org

New body of work featured in "Bold Little Beauty"

"Bold Little Beauty" at Carrie Haddad Gallery

Julia Whitney Barnes, Linda Newman Boughton, Sue Bryan, Shawn Dulaney, Susan Hope Fogel and Betsy Weis

Opening Reception: Saturday, April 9th, 5-7pm

April 6, 2022 through May 30, 2022 

Carrie Haddad Gallery is pleased to present “Bold Little Beauty”, an exhibit of painting and drawing by gallery artists Julia Whitney Barnes, Linda Newman Boughton, Sue Bryan, Shawn Dulaney, Susan Hope Fogel and photography by Betsy Weis. The exhibit will be on view April 6 – May 30th with an opening reception for the artists on Saturday, April 9th from 5-7pm. All are encouraged and welcome to attend. Masks are optional but recommended.

In her poem “May Flower”, the poet Emily Dickinson uses simple yet powerful language to convey how a small, pink flower, “covert in April, candid in May”, embodies humanity’s relationship with nature and time. With a single line, Dickinson elevates the physical to the symbolic, reminding us that we all have access to spring, new life, beauty, and unity with the natural world since it resides in one’s soul. The final stanza imparts that nature is “bedecked” by such “bold little beauties”; it is made up of tiny different lives, all of which are valuable and beautiful. And yet we are all destined to bloom, fade and die; to perpetuate a cycle that is at once hopeful and tragic. The work of these six artists is the visual manifestation of Dickinson’s sentiment as we consider our relationship with not only the natural world, but also with humanity. These artists are unified by an open-hearted approach to synthesizing their connectedness to nature, all the while exploring its complexities and embracing its simplicities.

Viewing Shawn Dulaney’s paintings could be likened to the experience of taking profoundly deep breaths; slowly inhaling to create an inner expansion followed by the expression of air into the abyss. Dulaney was raised on a plateau in Colorado where she lived under the constant influence of the vast sky. Its uninterrupted horizon and dramatic sunsets have served as continual source material for the abstractions in her work. Using handmade paints consisting of acrylic and powdered pigments, she achieves a wide range of saturations and transparencies on a surface of Venetian plaster. This unique combination creates the perfectly tinted veil through which to enter each painting. For the first time, Dulaney will also exhibit select watercolors alongside her larger paintings. She recalls that watercolor was the first paint she used as a child, and the medium itself feels like atmosphere. The push and pull of the heavier, watery pigments against the lighter ones can create starburst pools she refers to as “little gifts that happen that you can’t plan.” A working artist for over four decades, Dulaney’s paintings have been exhibited widely and can be found in extensive public and private collections including the Hunterdon Museum of Art in New Jersey. Her work has been reviewed in ArtNews, and The New York Times, and featured in Parabola Magazine and New American Paintings.

The smokey silhouette of a landscape rendered in charcoal is how Sue Bryan first commands your attention. A velvety rich, monochromatic palette of tonal greys are captivating from a distance and inviting in proximity. Bryan’s ability to distill the land’s complexities while preserving interest and integrity on a four-inch surface remains unparalleled. In her most recent drawing titled Sprig, 2021, 36 x 48 inches, she leaps onto a much larger surface where she exercises skillful drawing techniques to merge intricate detail with a broader interpretation of light and shadow. Other works are tinged with watercolor, a distinguishing touch that further endows the work with warmth and whimsy. Sue Bryan’s artistic practice repeatedly acknowledges the edges of knowing and celebrates the wonders of the unknown. A native of Ireland, Sue Bryan is primarily a self-taught artist. Her work has been selected for numerous juried exhibitions in the US and abroad, and she currently has representation in France and England. We are delighted to have been exhibiting her drawings in the gallery since 2015.

Susan Hope Fogel describes her paintings in watercolor as “an alternating dance of construction and deconstruction until the form is there, yet not defined in the traditional sense.” Scenes are pieced together, as if from a memory; convening outdoors for a summer evening concert; people-watching in Central Park; long, summer afternoons on the beach. Her work with its many layers of paint, drips, and splatters, achieves a mood that is activated by how she paints the light. Figures are prevalent in Fogel’s landscapes and urban scenes. She enriches these silhouettes with personality and character simply by capturing their posture, pose, shape and size. Fogel studied at The New York Academy of Art, The Art Student’s League, The National Academy of Design, and landscape painting at The Ridgewood Art Institute. The artist lives and works in Warwick, NY.

Julia Whitney Barnes has a uniquely tender treatment of the botanicals that inform her painting. Each composition starts as a blue and white cyanotype on watercolor paper. The ghostly silhouettes of arranged cut flowers, leaves and weeds are transferred to the paper using this camera-less technique, creating the foundation for what is then hand painted using gouache, watercolor, ink, and metallic paints. The composition experiences a sublime transformation in this stage. In her new series of Gold Cyanotype Paintings, a mandala formation emerges, evoking the rare and complex Shaker Gift Drawings of the mid-1800s. Whitney Barnes’ vision follows through to the final presentation with carefully constructed frames that encase these unique paintings, providing an environment for where they may exist akin to a specimen at a natural history museum. Julia Whitney Barnes is working towards “Planting Utopia” a three part site-specific exhibition opening this summer at the Shaker Heritage Site and the Albany International Airport. The show will be accompanied by a book to be released in August.

Some might struggle to associate impressionist painting and drawing with a ballpoint pen medium, but one of Linda Newman Boughton’s opulent landscape drawings in signature blue ink is a masterclass in the art of immediacy and movement. From a wild and tangled web of lines emerges identifiable forms, such as a complex root system or a bushy canopy of leaves. The work itself feels kinetic; millions of mark makings vibrate with an energy that stems from a sacred connection to nature. In recent months, Boughton has shifted to a larger scale by which to take an even deeper dive into this vast world of connectivity. This exhibit will present two drawings that are her largest landscapes to date; compositions that balance the density of detail with lightness of space. A self-taught artist, Boughton has worked as the head of scenic departments in the film and television industry in Los Angeles and has been represented by the gallery since 2015.

Betsy Weis has a distinct way of photographing that says as much about what is right in front of her as what is excluded from the frame. She is guided by weather, light and mood to discover moments and perspectives of transience. A resident of New York City, Weis travels extensively to leave the city grid and bask in nature. During the pandemic, her mobility was restricted and like so many of us, she turned to local pursuits. Her terrace and the stationery potted plants became a renewed source of interest and soon became subjects. This exhibit will include expansive images in black and white of leaves gently suspended in an open sky, suggestive that we are looking up from below where we stand in a concrete Arcadia. Betsy Weis received her MA in Painting from New York University and has been exhibiting with the gallery since 1997.

Carrie Haddad Gallery
622 Warren Street, Hudson, NY 12534
518-828-1915 info@carriehaddadgallery.com

Open Daily: 11 am to 5 pm
Except Tuesdays by appointment only

Julia Whitney Barnes
Cyanotype Painting (Hellebore, Fritillaria, Pollinators, Tondo), 2021
23" X 23" paper size
29” x 29” inches framed

watercolor, gouache, and cyanotype on Cotton Arches Paper

Four works featured in "Sans Toi" April 6–30, at Equity Gallery, 245 Broome Street, NYC

Equity Gallery is pleased to announce Sans Toi, a group exhibition featuring works by Sarah Kurz, Iris Lan, Kristina Libby, and Julia Whitney Barnes. The exhibition is curated by Melinda Wang, an independent curator and a former executive director of New York Artists Equity and Equity Gallery. It will be on view from April 6-30, 2022, with a public opening reception on Thursday, April 7, 6-8pm.

Anticipation. What ifs.  Anxiety.  Time suspended.  Two years into a global pandemic and now living under the dark clouds of war, we’re caught in a liminal space of waiting for what’s next while confronting our own mortality.  The artists in the exhibition bring us new perspectives of memento mori and the imbuing of beauty into reminders of the inevitability of death.  Through painting, film, sculpture and music, the works help us process the world around us, understand the passage of time and perhaps conjure a call to action. 

Sarah Kurz’s paintings investigate stream-of-consciousness moments when memory and reality coalesce.  Capturing the feeling of being caught in the moment, and the mystery of whether a visual memory is imagined or real, these paintings create a swirl of thoughts about longing, beauty, death and the passage of time.  Iris Lan explores litanies as memento mori.  Her composition, “Prelude: Litany,” recalls petitionary prayer and the imagery of snow and dust as a meditation on Ecclesiastes (“For everything there is a season”). She performs Jehan Alain’s ardent response to a time of distress and Maurice Durufle’s tribute to Alain and his last moments as he faced death in World War II.  Kristina Libby’s works are an invitation to process grief by connecting with one another. “Heartbleed'' honors the lives lost during the pandemic, with each fallen rose petal representing one American we have lost and becoming a storm of red as we recall our collective trauma.  Her bone and floral sculptures remind us of the mutualistic relationship among the organic, the ephemeral and the eternal.  The beauty of Julia Whitney Barnes’s painted cyanotype flower works is immediately apparent with their saturated colors and engaging composition.  Upon closer look, the flowers are ghost-like -- capturing both “light” and “death” as the cut flowers will soon be discarded.  Only the flowers’ images remain; they are a permanent symbol of the subjects’ impermanence.  

Each artist gives us layers of emotions and contradictions to examine and understand, while also offering us the opportunity to reflect. “Beauty” is transformed from physical beauty to the beauty of a deeper understanding of our own mortality.  A memento mori illuminates and inspires.  How will you live your life today?

“Sans Toi” is the theme song of Agnes Varda’s film, “Cleo from 5 to 7,” a memento mori that explores beauty, authenticity, existentialism and French feminism through the vehicle of liminal space.

New York Artists Equity Association Inc.
245 Broome Street
New York, NY 10002
Tel: +1 (931) 410-0020
Email: info@nyartistsequity.org

Gallery Hours: Wednesday to Saturday, 12 PM - 6 PM