2008-07-12
Lea Barton's work is included in A Tribute to Cole Pratt: His Gallery’s First 15 Years, 1993-2008, through September 21 at the New Orleans Museum of Art; and All That I Can’t Leave Behind, on view until September 9 at the Wiregrass Museum of Art in Dothan, Alabama.
Barton combines collage and paint with photography and printmaking techniques to create richly layered works exploring the material and political history of the South, and dissecting female stereotypes of Antebellum and contemporary Southern culture. The work reflects both Barton’s childhood memories of growing up in Mississippi, and her later efforts to define what it means to be from the South.
A Tribute to Cole Pratt honors New Orleans gallerist Cole Pratt (1955-2008) by exhibiting a selection of southern artists whom he tirelessly represented, promoted, and fostered through the Cole Pratt Gallery. Barton’s piece, created post-Katrina and entitled All That You Can’t Leave Behind, depicts a woman holding a small box close to her heart. One imagines it contains her most precious belongings. She floats on a sea of numbers created from an old Keno board, portending an element of risk. For more information visit http://www.noma.org
Barton’s solo exhibition at Wiregrass Museum of Art, All That I Can’t Leave Behind, twists the title of the aforementioned work into the first person. The show features twelve works created from 1998 to 2007, including Sunday Morning, a large installation comprising 30 portraits of African American women bedecked in their finest church-going hats. For more information visit http://www.wiregrassmuseum.org
A selection of Barton’s solo exhibitions includes Denise Bibro Fine Art, New York City; the Cole Pratt Gallery in New Orleans, LA; Perry Nicole Gallery, Memphis, TN; Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson, MS; and the Alexandria Museum of Art in Alexandria, LA, among many others. She has also participated in many group and invitational shows in museums and galleries nationwide. She currently resides in Flora, MS.
