Alicia Barney

Since the seventies, being a Pratt Institute Student in Brooklyn, Barney showed an interest for transcendent almost metaphysical works. Her creations questioned or reflected upon different situations of her surroundings, going to the personal to the universal, such as destruction of nature and the environment, overpopulation, hunger; but more over they showed a very singular artistic character. She has done her work through rituals and creative processes that grow from a spiritual and intuitive principle that shows mystical connections with art, but always with a critical, cynical and daring point of view.
Although she prefers not talking about religious beliefs, her work has a shamanic strength. Her work shows and career show an almost immaterial potency that has permitted her to walk and continue creating in Colombia’s arid path of conceptual art, which is starting to be studied. After finishing her studies abroad, and coming back to her hometown Cali, the local art scene and spaces were scarce for conceptual, critical practices, and although thanks to the support of some important curators she did some institutional shows, her work has not been given its proper recognition as the pioneer artist in ecological/land art, and feminine studies in the art history of Colombia, which is still waiting to be written.
Barney’s experience with artistic tools such as the found object, using her most intimate experiences for the exploration of art, as well as including science and philosophy in her work really make her one of the most unique presences in the seventies and eighties decades in Colombia which on the other hand was mostly dominated by men.