Poughkeepsie-based artist Julia Whitney Barnes joins us to share insights into her wide-ranging artistic practice, which is based in reverent observation of the natural world. Whitney Barnes’s work is a highlight of the Loeb’s exhibition The Botanist at Vassar, on view through October 4. She is also the creator of The Botanist’s Mural, a mural commissioned for Vassar’s Heartwood/Institute of the Liberal Arts.

This event is free and open to the public.

More about Julia Whitney Barnes

Born in Newbury, VT, Julia Whitney Barnes spent two decades in Brooklyn/NYC before moving to the Hudson Valley in 2015. She received a BFA from Parsons School of Design and MFA from Hunter College. Whitney Barnes works in a variety of media from cyanotypes, watercolor, combined media works on paper, oil paintings, glass, ceramic sculptures, murals, site-specific installations, and limited-edition prints. She has exhibited widely in the United States and internationally including the Albany International Airport; Shaker Heritage Society, Albany, New York; Dorksy Museum, New Paltz, NY; Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Poughkeepsie, NY; Hancock Shaker Museum, Berkshires, MA; Woodstock Artists Association & Museum (WAAM), Woodstock, NY; Institute of Contemporary Art, Portland, ME; Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, NY; Kenise Barnes Fine Art, Kent, CT; Garvey|Simon NY, New York, NY and Galerie Julian Sander, Cologne, Germany. Her work is in numerous private and public collections.

Whitney Barnes is the recipient of fellowships from the New York State Council on the Arts, Winterthur Museum, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Arts Mid-Hudson, Abbey Memorial Fund for Mural Painting/National Academy of Fine Arts, and the Gowanus Public Art Initiative, among others. She completed two significant commissions in 2024 including an immersive double-sided glass artwork for Public Art for Public Schools/NYC Percent for Art in Brooklyn, NY and a room-wide mural for the new Vassar College Institute in Poughkeepsie, NY in 2024. In 2025 she created a wraparound exterior mural in Cambridge, MA based on local flora and inspired by the famous 19th century glass flowers in the collection of the Harvard Museum of Natural History.