Artist Bio

taylor barnes is a multidisciplinary artist working across ceramics, fibers, and drawing. Her practice investigates spirituality, oral history, and structures of power through material and form. Drawing on bell hooks’ writings on objectification and subjectivity, barnes explores the relationships between the body, materiality, and the construction of self. 

Working primarily with clay, fabric, string, and charcoal, barnes translates emotion and lived experience into material forms that hold traces of labor, memory, and ritual. Within her practice, Black operates as both a formal language and a philosophical position, producing works that appear restrained while holding complex relationships to lineage, presence, and transformation. In 2026, barnes began a year-long residency with West Orchid Artist Residency in Georgia. She lives and works between Georgia and Austin, Texas.

She received her MFA in Fibers from the University of North Texas. Her work has been presented in solo exhibitions at the 154 Contemporary African Art Fair in Harlem, New York; Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas; Erin Cluley Gallery in Dallas, Texas; and Martha’s Contemporary in Austin, Texas. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at Untitled Art Fair in Miami, Florida; the South Dallas Cultural Center and Dallas Art Fair in Dallas, Texas; and the Carver Museum in Austin, Texas. Her work has been collected by the Mead Museum, board members of the New Museum, and families of professional athletes. barnes received the Dallas Museum of Art’s Arch and Giles Kimbrough Fund Award in 2021 and was honored with the Sylvia Houlgand Emerging Artist Award from Make Art with Purpose in 2020. She has also received multiple art-focused scholarships throughout her education. Her work and practice have been featured in Artsy, Glasstire, KERA, and The Dallas Morning News.