Category Archives: Art Critic

Update on Brotfabrik Exhibition (March 17, 2018)

Now that my exhibition at Brotfabrik has finished its second week and entered into its third, I thought I would share some of what’s happened and what’s coming up.

One of the gallerists at Brotfabrik has written several blog posts about the opening and my paintings, you can find them here:

1. On the opening: http://volwi-ein.blogspot.de/2018/03/stephanie-barnes-ronny-johne-going-with.html
2. The large piece that hangs in the first room: http://volwi-ein.blogspot.de/2018/03/gedanken-zum-bild-stephanie-barnes.html
3. Joy #4: http://volwi-ein.blogspot.de/2018/03/gedanken-zum-bild-joy-4-stephanie-barnes.html

I am doing a workshop on March 31 at the gallery from 13:00 until 18:00. The theme will be Resilience, and I will lead you through an interactive workshop exploring different artistic mediums and methods and how you can become the artist of your own life. Bringing artistic activities into your life can help you to be more resilient, curious, and help you to reduce stress. Come and explore and find out how. You can come for an hour or two, or hang-out for the whole afternoon, it’s up to you. If you’re on Facebook you can see details here: https://www.facebook.com/events/2034316343494347/ and if you’re not on Facebook there is information on the Brotfabrik page http://brotfabrik-berlin.de/event/stephanie-barnes-ronny-johne-going-with-the-flow/2018-03-17/, but basically just show-up ready to paint/draw and explore.

I will also do an artist talk at the finissage on April 15 at 16:00. I am hoping to prepare some of it in German, so come out and see how I do. 🙂

Finally, if you’re wondering if it’s worth coming out to see the exhibition, I can tell you that there are some things installed that were not at the “Ich muss gehen” event in January or other exhibitions I have done in Berlin. Additionally, the first piece in a new series that I have just started is hanging at the gallery, it’s called, “Opening Up #1”. The series deals with how we open ourselves up to people, only to get frightened and retreat again. It has elements of the “Masks we hide behind” series and other themes I’ve dealt with, but adds some new components; I’m excited for you to see it, so I hope you’ll stop by the gallery and check it out. The gallery is open daily from 16:00 until 20:00.

That’s all for now, I hope to see you at the workshop or the Finissage.

Passage through the Opposites: Stephanie Barnes’ Reconciliation Painting

The following essay was written about my art by an art critic who reviewed my work here in Berlin. The critic wishes to remain anonymous.

Whole.

I long to be heard.

Words and pictures; not words or pictures.

I long to be whole, not half.

My struggle is to be…

Whole. 

                        –Stephanie Barnes

In 2014, the year that Germany celebrated its 25th anniversary of reconciliation, Stephanie Barnes knew in a single instant that she was going to move to Berlin. In this AHA moment, she was united between her fated pathways of opposites, as a twin born under the sign of Gemini, seeking reconciliation in her art.

“In December, it was a feeling of being home, even though I was standing in a kitchen filled with someone else’s belongings, and only two suitcases of my own with me,” she recalls of her visit to Berlin, just a month after the reconciliation celebration. “The other moment, in February 2015, it was feeling homesick for Berlin after being away for 2 days, on a 16-day business trip.”

The artist being at home in a city representing division and reconciliation for the world comes with a feeling of wholeness and integration. Barnes sees a parallel between her emotions expressed in painting and that of the German nation. This inner/outer composition between her inner feeling of reconciliation and the external reconciliation in her new environment is a theme working its way through her art.

“In Germany and in Berlin, the reconciliation is between east/west, communism/capitalism, homogeneity/diversity–­the group versus the individual,” Barnes muses. “On the personal level, the reconciliation is between left and right brain, knowledge management and creativity, business and art, standing up for myself and belonging.”

For Barnes, the journey to integration extends from her birthright as a twin born under the Gemini sign of the Twins. “Who am I?” is the question she asks, and seeks to answer, with her painting. Her passage between the opposites as businesswoman and artist has led to the discovery of a language to access the energy built up from the tension of balancing life in the corporate world with her life in art.

Paradoxically, the process of working the image through this eternal question of identity has brought her into a rediscovery of words: “The integration and reconciliation of my logical business half and the creative, painting, artistic half is my own. I am not half a person, I am not only business/knowledge management/process; I am not only a creative/painter/artist. I am not half a twin. I am a whole in a set of twins.”

Yet, she sums up her passage of reconciliation through the opposites that is her birthright with a single word: JOY.