Christine Barney

My work celebrates color, light and time

December 2021
I have worked in glass for many years, with a deep interest in transparency. Glass is an actual physical object and also an idea, a material where light has a natural voice. Light in glass is absorbed, filtered and reflected. My purpose as an artist is to harness and build on these natural forces.

My recent work was generated by a free-flowing multiple piece sculpture created from 2018 – 2020, that used Instagram as the platform. The photos document the evolution of a multiple edition sculpture,” blue/yellow/orange/green”, a piece comprised of 4 pieces of glass. Over time, the sculpture became multiple ideas, rather than an object, that allowed chance and seemingly unrelated events to play a hand in the outcome.

With glass, aluminum and fabric, color and light are explored as open and hidden movement. The photos on fabric transfer the hard, polished surface of glass into a fluid and sensual expression. In a natural progression, I began to paint directly on the fabric, still referencing color and light as my lodestar. The sculptured fabric forms use color as movement, open and hidden, layered, the picture plane and the sculptured form, a combination of painting and sculpture.