April 2 - May 7, 2022
From Erin Cluley Gallery:
“ERIN CLULEY GALLERY is delighted to announce the upcoming exhibition by taylor barnes, Holding On to Elsewhere, the artist’s second solo show with the gallery. The exhibition will be on view April 2nd through May 7th, 2022 at the gallery’s main location, 150 Manufacturing Street, Suite 210. The gallery is open weekly Wednesday through Saturday, 12 – 5 PM and by appointment. An opening reception will be held Saturday April 2nd, 5 – 8 PM with the artist in attendance.
Using fiber, charcoal, clay, and text, taylor barnes’ work reveals themes of race, identity, and social critique. Heavily informed by history and language, her practice is as equally inspired by oral history and critical writers as it is by visual artists. Charcoal being her primary method of making depicts gestural figures and non-representational forms in rich texture. The lush ephemerality of the dark medium imbues an uncontrollable nature into the works, as the textile substrate concurrently calls to mind past modes of historical record and narration.
In Holding On to Elsewhere, barnes considers the positions of Black women within white spaces. Here, she presents notions of voyeurism, the gaze, and the power of choice. Non-representational forms appear and function as portals, as the figures and vessels become visual metaphors of the spiritual presences and experiences. The ambiguity of the figures and their expressions of refusal contribute to an intentional complication of discrete roles of ‘object and subject’.
Although barnes has not previously exhibited her ceramics, she has long used the medium as inspiration. She has created a language with sculptural vessels, which are reflected in her two- dimensional works. In Holding on to Elsewhere, barnes will present her ceramics for the first time in an installation alongside the charcoal on cloth works.
Austin curator and writer Phillip Townsend writes, “Body, space, and memory form a kind of trilogy that bears itself out in barnes’ ongoing exploration of the material world and the transcendental.”
A catalogue will be published on the occasion of the exhibition with an essay by Austin based curator and writer Phillip Townsend. Signed copies will be available for sale online and in the gallery.
About the Artist
taylor barnes was born in 1993 in Austin, Texas. In 2019, she received an MFA in Fibers from the University of North Texas, where she earned two BFAs in 2015 for both Ceramics and Fibers and served as a Teaching Assistant and Fellow. She has exhibited solo shows at Erin Cluley Gallery, UNT on the Square, Denton Black Film Festival, 500X Gallery, and at Big Medium in Austin, TX, running concurrently with her outdoor installation for Round 14 of the Cage Match Project outside The Museum of Human Achievement.
barnes has received awards such as the Dallas Museum of Art’s Arch and Anne Giles Kimrough Fund Award in 2021, the Sylvia Hougland Emerging Artist Award for Make Art With Purpose 2020, and multiple art focused scholarships throughout her education. Her work has been featured on platforms such as Dallas Contemporary and Big Medium in the form of digitally recorded artist talks, and in publications such as Glasstire, KERA, and The Dallas Morning News. barnes currently lives and works in Austin, Texas.
About Erin Cluley Gallery
Erin Cluley Gallery is a contemporary art gallery representing emerging, mid-career, and established artists from Dallas and the United States. The gallery presents a provocative program of artists working in both traditional and alternative forms including painting, sculpture, new media, photography, sculptural installation, and public intervention.
In 2014, Erin Cluley Gallery ignited a creative movement in West Dallas acting as a hub for visual arts and community engagement. After nearly five years on Fabrication Street, the gallery has moved its operation to Riverbend – a development in Dallas’ Design District celebrating the intersection between culture and commerce.
In April 2021, Cluley opened Cluley Projects – a satellite location in West Dallas acting as an incubator space focusing on regional artists and providing a platform for discovery and mentorship. “
Reception: April 2, 2022 | 5–8 pm
150 Manufacturing Street, Suite 210
Dallas , 75212 Texas
214-538-1148
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