Alicia Barney Caldas

Alicia Barney (born November 28, 1952) is a Colombian artist based in Cali who focuses her paintings and installation art on ecological questions and problems such as water pollution, deforestation and quality of life. She specializes in on-hand interactions with her surroundings and what the natural environment has to offer in order to educate the public about her environmental concerns. Barney's artwork reveals the evolution of her view of ecological aspects through landscape themes that hold traditional and representational vocabulary and express ecology in a creative and interesting way. Barney studied at the College of New Rochelle, New York (BA 1974), and at the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn (MFA 1977) where she came across the art of Claes Oldenburg. Oldenburg inspired Barney to create her first ever sculpture. She created, Diario objecto I and Diario object II (Object diary I, 1977, and Object diary II, 1978-79) to show how everyday objects can create art and a storyline with simple random objects found in her primary homes, New York and Colombia. The Diario Object (Diary Objects) is an art installation of found objects that Barney collected on the streets of New York and Colombia. 180 x 5 cm Reproductions: "Rio Cauca" (1982), Installation;- Three clear acrylic tanks, test tubes, water, photographic record (35 photographs) and 5 water drums. (1984) (1998), Installation;- three cast aluminum triangles, 140 rustic copper semi-spheres, and ten dental acrylic corncobs with human molars, Variable dimensions.

Exhibitions Past exhibitions 2018 Radical Women Latin American Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art, 1960-1985 2017 Live Uncertainty: An Exhibition after the 32nd Bienal de São Paulo, Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art 2017 La forma del futuro Exposición + laboratorio de experiencias, La Tertulia Museum 32nd Bienal de São Paulo (2016)

Solo exhibitions 1978 Diario-objeto, Biblioteca Central, Universidad del Valle, Cali, Colombia 1982 El ecologico, Espacio Alternativo Sara Modiano, Barranquilla, Colombia 1993 Aves en el cielo, Galeria Gartner Torres, Bogota 1998 Jugete de las hadas, Museo de Arte de Pereira and Museo La Merced de Cali, Colombia 2015 Basurero utopica, Instituto de Vision, Bogota

Honors and awards In 1980 Barney was awarded first place at the third Salon Regional de Artes Visuals in Colombia, and her work has been featured in important group shows, such as the 32nd Bienal de São Paulo (2016).