Title:  “Amanda Barrow: Poetic Paintings & Prints”

Opening: November 7, 2025 from 5 – 8 pm

Exhibit will run through December 1st

Poetic paintings and monotype prints by Amanda Barrow featuring inspired mark-making artworks from her travels around the world.

  “For the past few years, I have been developing a group of paintings entitled The Transparency Series. There are several sources of inspiration underlying this work that touch upon issues of politics and feminism. First, I make use of a sense of relativism that calls into question the idea of a fixed center, political or otherwise. Second, I celebrate the power of women to control their interactions within their social environment through their use of fabric on their bodies. Third, I draw on ideas of the role of fabric in protecting and healing, inspired by important women in my life.
     My use of the square format is intended to convey a sense of balance, but without being limited by a suggestion of landscape or the human body. This equalizing of the dimensions of the boundaries avoids the prioritization of any one perspective. To add to this sense of relativity, I evade the natural tendency to define a center. In my earlier work, the “center” of my paintings was technically the exact center of the piece, marked with a shape on the surface. More recently, I have chosen to de-emphasize the tyranny of a single defining center. In some works, the focal point is displaced to other locations on the square, or may remain undefined. For my own sense of grounding, however, I mark the center with a tiny “x,” which serves as a reference point around which the rest of the piece spirals. This creates an analog to my own life, which from my perspective spins slowly around the central reference point of my physical body and soul. 
     I also make use of transparency and layering of fabric, inspired in part by my travels in India and the beauty of the textiles used in that part of the world. Women in particular make strategic use of fabric both as a display of the beautiful textures and patterns of the material, and as a kind of veil, concealing and revealing, as they choose, their faces and various parts of their bodies. Often that which appears to be intended to conceal actually serves to seduce, such as when a woman’s face is barely visible beneath a semi-transparent piece of cloth. While more obvious conceptions of sensuality involve revealing most of the human body, a glimpse of an ankle beneath the multi-layered wrapping of a woman’s sari can enhance desire by hinting at what remains hidden.  
     The role of fabric in protection from the environment and in healing is another recurring theme in my work. Three of the most important women in my life, my mother, my grandmother, and my sister, inspired me to draw this connection. I have foundational memories of my mother’s quilting and knitting, my grandmother’s embroidering, and my sister teaching me to sew. In my own way, I am continuing this maternal tradition in my family by using textiles in my work, albeit in an abstract and personal way. 
     The role of textiles in healing struck me most particularly during the period that I witnessed a close friend wasting away from cancer. I couldn’t escape a kind of macabre fascination with the transparency of his skin. While we normally see our skin as the exterior manifestation of our being, which allows us to largely ignore the inner workings of our bodies, I found that I was forced to confront the nature of the skin as a kind of boundary that holds us together, and to consider just how fragile that boundary can be. 
     All of these inspirations are manifested in my recent work, which begins with cheesecloth stretched as a canvas over the stretcher bars and treated with either rabbit skin glue or canvas sizing. I continue by layering and collaging very thin or transparent fabric such as silk on top of, behind, and around the square. I also employ sewing, and apply thread, paint and ink within and on top of the resulting matrix. The idea of the center contributes to the overall structure even while I avoid allowing it to dominate the work. I create an atmosphere of seduction through colors, textures, shapes, and shading that are subtly revealed through gaps in the fabric. Underlying the game of seduction is the inevitable awareness of fragility and transience. My use of cheese cloth evokes the image of a bandage, and my use of covering, exposure, patching, and stitching parallels our attempts to fend off those forces that encroach on our being and compromise our efforts to maintain our physical integrity and mental well-being.”

Biography

Amanda Barrow was raised in the Mid-west in an environment conducive to creativity and abstract thinking. In 1992, a Fulbright research grant provided an opportunity for her to live and work in India for 13 months. She has returned to India many times since then, funded by fellowships from the Massachusetts and Boston Cultural Councils, and a host of other institutions. Presently, Speedball Art is a proud sponsor of Ms Barrow; she lives/works in Massachusetts and Maine and teaches monotype printmaking around the planet. Her work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Boston and New York Public Libraries, and the Museum of the Book in the Netherlands, among numerous other places around the world.

Statement

Travels in India, China, Europe, New Zealand, Iceland, and the U.S.A. have enhanced Amanda Barrow’s personal vision, leading her to dig deeper into the indigenous spiritual ambiance of the East in her artwork. Synthesizing these Eastern concepts with the Western visual language of her upbringing is her intention. Ms Barrow experiments with transparency and explores the inherent structure of her chosen mediums, including painting and monotype printmaking and painting. The resulting work presents a broad range of abstractions which utilize nature, architecture, and the human body as Amanda Barrow’s primary sources of inspiration.