BELLOWS FALLS, Vt. – Canal Street Art Gallery presents the Whitney Barrett solo show, open April 18 – June 14. Join the gallery on April 18, from 5-7 p.m., for Free Self Expression on Bellows Falls Third Fridays and an opening reception for the artist. All gallery events are free and open to the public, for wheelchair accessibility call 802-289-0104.
In the artist’s first solo show, Whitney Barrett presents paper collages and mixed-media paintings using 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 new artworks continue a series Barrett has explored for the past two decades, creating visual metaphors to express her main interest, communication.
The artist’s love of fairy tales, wonder tales, myths, and legends combines with ideas about heteronormative relationships, gendered expectations, female rage, patronization, fetishization, and absurdity, to create the figures which dominate the narratives of Barrett’s work. These figures assume the role of characters in an ongoing story as revealed by the artist. 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 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.
The paper collages in Barrett’s solo show are titled and made based on found text from romance novels, such as “Her temper was well flown…,” “‘No,’ she muttered beneath her breath…,” and “Such a mouthy little wench.” In the 12-inch by 9-inch artwork titled “I shall most likely cut his throat in the night!” the figure looks up in profile with dreamy, defiant hope. Each of these pieces is intricately and beautifully adorned with decorative papers, stamped or gel printed by the artist with natural imagery such as ferns, birds, flowers, architecture, and animals.
The larger works in the show incorporate book pages as well as painting, often placing the subject in scenes, such as the artwork titled “Red Beetle.” In this piece, Barrett places her subject sitting atop a red car, with bare feet and her knees pulled to her chest, a small rodent-like tail protruding from her pants, while her full hair, from which antlers grow into a tree in fall foliage, falls over an oversized checked sweater.
Canal Street Art Gallery is located at 23 Canal Street, in historic downtown Bellows Falls, Vt., and is open Tuesday-Saturday, from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.; Sunday, from 11 a.m. – 4 p.m., and the third Friday of every month, from 10 a.m. – 7 p.m. For more information about the Whitney Barrett solo show, visit www.canalstreetartgallery.com, call Mike at 802-289-0104, or send emails to artinfo@canalstreetartgallery.com.