Time Batteries

“Each and every painting is a time battery – its apperception could consume a lifetime.” -David Joselit

I love this quote. It suggests that each painting can embody its own history of production and its place in time, while simultaneously connecting to a much larger network spanning deep time and history. The quote uses the term apperception to imply an embodied idea connected intuitively to a larger body of ideas. This perfectly describes Barnes’ process as she embarks upon each new painting. Barnes identifies as a flâneuse. This takes the 19th century term flâneur, originally used to describe a man of leisure strolling the streets of Paris, and updates it to define a contemporary feminized identity. Walking and sensing the environment is field study for her studio work. Sensations, and the experience of space and time, reveal patterns and interconnections that can define place, time, future speculation, or buried histories.

The paintings are slow paintings, often based on a modernist-inspired grid. The work takes time to make. They set a stage where time can unfold for the viewer. Color integrates with overlapping forms across a rhythmic composition, resulting in a sometimes fractured, but often harmonious environment. Through a process of layering, inspired as much by digital production as the intuitive and experimental application of paint, the paintings evolve. Forms overlap, appear, disappear, transform, vibrate, or sit in stillness, but nothing remains fixed.

All is in flux.