John and June Allcott Gallery: taylor barnes, Weight of Light

Reception and gallery talk: October 29, 2026, 5:00 pm

Weight of Light explores how powerful emotions can be expressed through simplicity. Using bold contrasts between light and dark, the artist creates striking images that convey feeling through form, space, and gesture rather than detailed storytelling. The exhibition invites viewers to slow down and experience mood, tension, and vulnerability in a direct and deeply human way.

Weight of Light brings together seven works created by artist taylor barnes during her year-long residency at West Orchid in Pine Lake, Georgia. The work marks a period of experimentation and personal reflection. Drawing from her background in fibers and ceramics, barnes approaches the canvas as a site of material exploration. Through processes of staining, layering, and transforming solids into liquids and back again, she creates environments that make space for chance, absence, and emergence. The seven works resist Western linear narratives, instead functioning as maps of origin within an ongoing movement from uncertainty towards revelation. Moving between darkness and light, the works consider perception, ambiguity, and the experience of reclaiming. Existing somewhere between painting and object, these works function as thresholds. As open-ended structures, Weight of Light positions ascension as a practice of self-possession and power.

taylor barnes is a ceramicist and fiber artist exploring spirituality, oral history, and power through material and form. Heavily influenced by bell hooks’ object/subject theories, she works with clay, fabric, string, and charcoal to translate emotion and experience into tangible presence. Black being her only color choice and philosophy, she creates work that appears restrained yet carries deep labor, lineage, ritual, and quiet intensity. barnes received her MFA in Fibers from the University of North Texas. She lives and works between Georgia and Austin, Texas.

Admission: Free
Gallery Hours: Monday-Friday, 8 am-5 pm

A weeknight or daytime permit is now required after 5:00 pm on weekdays. No permit is required from 5:00 pm Friday through 7:30 am Monday. A $1.00 one-night pass is available in selected lots. More information can be found at UNC Weeknight Parking.

Artist website: https://www.barnesartistry.com/

For more information, please contact: Annette Lawrence, annettel@unc.edu

Image credit: Courtesy of the artist