Southern Witness: John Barnes
Beau Rivage Gallery of African American Art
June 11 – September 7, 2019
Artist Statement
I see the spaces between points as active elements to be exploited within my creative process. I work within a language of dimensionality, modularity, directional forces, and momentary interactions with history, and the mainstream western news media.
I use the material of wood to launch an investigation into the spectrum of the abstract and following all of it’s possibilities. Within the “Southern Witness” exhibition, different assemblage expressions are grouped to express historical truths and highlight the landscape of emotional triggers brought about through the surfaces of the materials.
I look at the flat surface as the “ground floor” as I begin adding layers of physicality to the flat plane. While in the midst of assembling varied wood sections I might overhear in the background noise a sampling of a topic from the news media that fits neatly into the wooden assemblage at it’s inception. One of those subjects that I picked up on while working was the issue of the National Football League’s Player’s protest that happened in Fall 2017 and carried over briefly into the playoff season in early 2018. The “Fieldhouse/ Locker room” sculpture allowed me the appropriate creative space to examine the imbalance of power presented through the news media. The public power-struggle that ensued between the N.F.L. player’s and team owners really caught my attention. I envisioned the relationship as similar to a plantation owner and his slaves.
The shape of the football led me in the direction of using “eyes” as subject matter for my more recent examinations of space and form within abstraction. The “Eye Candy” and “Eye Study” series grew out of my fascination with the vertis shape and how it can function as an open or closed form. I’m also drawn to boxy shapes and rectangular openings. These shapes are inspired by window-sills, which can reference a space within a space that also bridges one point of view with another, just like the eye.