Whitney Barrett

Whitney Barrrett

American, b. 1979, Connecticut, based in Saxtons River, VT

Artist's Statement

Some of my recent work focuses on combining elements of narration and abstraction and I’ve been translating my drawings and collages into ceramics. Using pattern, mark making and collage, I have been integrating found text and hybrid/abstracted human figures in static poses. All of these pieces explore questions of identity, story, and how we present to the outside world. I am interested in the way stories are told and implied, assumptions and miscommunication, as well as the tension between expectation and desire. I am a deep lover of fairy tales and fantasy, and am interested in playing with the metaphors of animals and how we know ourselves as humans. In my paper collages and mixed media paintings you’ll see my use of intricate line drawings of anamorphic female figures along with hand stamped papers, gel prints, colored tissue paper, found words, and book pages from romance novels. These artworks continue a series I’ve been exploring the past two decades creating visual metaphors to express her main interest: communication. My love of fairy tales, wonder tales, myths, and legends, combines with ideas about hetero-normitave relationships, gendered expectations, female rage, patronization, fetishization and absurdity, to create the figures which dominate the narratives of my work. These figures assume the role of “characters” in an ongoing story as revealed by me in the artwork.  Figures in all the works refer to each other with a collective visual language of a red circle on her cheeks, the lines of her face emphasizing expressive eyes and feminine lips, wearing bulky sweaters, rounded dresses or pants, and each figure with their own (some more, some less) of animal features: such as feathers, fox tails, hedgehog hoodies, cat ears, antlers, bare feet, bird feet, no feet and eight legs, or tiny red boots and shoes.

Biography

Whitney Barrett, based in Saxtons River, Vermont works in collage, pen and ink, acrylic paint, and found text to explore questions of identity, story, and how we present to the outside world. A deep lover of fairy tales and fantasy, Barrett is interested in playing with the metaphors of animals and how we know ourselves as humans. “I am interested in the way stories are told and implied, assumptions and miscommunication, as well as the tension between expectation and desire.” - Whitney Barrett

Canal Street Art Gallery

23 Canal Street, Bellows Falls, Vermont