Utopia Editions: Hayley Barker | June 28—July 26, 2023

Featuring the sumptuous palette and fine mark-making characteristic of Hayley Barker’s signature, ethereal landscapes, New Yard, Elysian Heights draws from the dreamlike imagery of nineteenth-century symbolists—and the artist’s own garden—as inspiration.

New Yard, Elysian Heights

Hayley Barker

New Yard, Elysian Heights, 2023

Six-plate etching with aquatint, soft ground, and spit bite on Rives BFK paper

20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)
Framed: 22 1/4 x 18 1/8 inches (56.5 x 46 cm)
Edition of 30, 5 AP

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Hayley Barker, New Yard, Elysian Heights, 2023 (detail)

The etching, Barker’s first print, is also her first depiction of the backyard of her new home in the Elysian Heights neighborhood of Echo Park, Los Angeles. It features a path of stepping stones she placed amid potted plants that ascend to a higher part of the yard.

Like the lush gardenscapes Barker has become known for, the print relates to the landscape paintings of artists such as Édouard Vuillard, Charles Burchfield, and Paul Gauguin—but is imbued with her signature treatment of nature, reflecting a sense of femininity, spirituality, and a deep appreciation for the earth.

Featured works in GIF: Pierre Bonnard, The Riviera, c. 1923 (detail). The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC. © 2023 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Charles E. Burchfield, Before the Storm, 1916 (detail). Private Collection. Reproduced with permission from the Charles E. Burchfield Foundation; Paul Gauguin, Countryside, 1901 (detail). Photo © RMN-Grand Palais (Orangerie Museum) / Hervé Lewandowski

I DON’T KNOW THIS YARD SUPER WELL YET, SO THERE IS A SENSE OF MYSTERY. MY DREAM IS TO MOONBATHE IN THE BACKYARD THIS SUMMER. YOU FEEL HELD BY THE LUSH PLANT LIFE, AND SINCE IT’S ON A HILL, YOU FEEL CLOSE TO THE SKY.
—HAYLEY BARKER

Portrait of Hayley Barker at Wingate Studio, 2023. Photo by Tony Luong

Barker created the new edition during a three-week residency at Wingate Studio, a print workshop in a classic New England barn set on a fifty-five-acre family farm in New Hampshire, where she worked with master printers Peter and James Pettengill.

Barker used etching techniques such as aquatint, soft ground, and spit bite to achieve areas of shaded tone and color. Photo by Tony Luong

Three of the six plates used to create the edition rest on a rack after being inked. Each plate holds a single color, and together the six plates comprise the final image. Photo by Tony Luong

Barker inspects color tests to determine the palette for New Yard, Elysian Heights. Photo by Tony Luong

The final color, ultramarine blue, is pulled on an impression of New Yard, Elysian Heights. Photo by Tony Luong

Hayley Barker, New Yard, Elysian Heights, 2023 (detail)

WE EXPERIENCED THE FULL MOON LUNAR ECLIPSE IN SCORPIO WHILE MAKING THE PRINT, AND IT FELT RIGHT TO INCLUDE THAT.
—HAYLEY BARKER

Barker signs a finished proof. Photo by Tony Luong

Barker also worked on a series of monoprints featuring the crabapple and cherry blossom bouquet that greeted her when she arrived at the studio. Here, she translates her rich, atmospheric scenery and dry brush painting technique into a unique work.

Hayley Barker

Wingate Farm Welcome Bouquet 4, 2023

Monoprint in oil with soft-ground etching on Twinrocker handmade paper

30 x 22 inches (76.2 x 55.9 cm)

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Barker’s reference imagery and palette for her monoprints, which she created using oil-based etching inks on handmade paper. Photo by Tony Luong

Barker paints directly onto the bed of the printing press, using the press itself as the matrix—the surface from which the image is pulled. Photo by Tony Luong

For each monoprint, Barker painted anew on the press, resulting in a unique hand-painted image every time. Photo by Tony Luong

A copper plate with soft-ground etching was printed atop the hand-painted layers, embossing the sheet and imparting a delicate line drawing onto the print. Photo by Tony Luong

The fine lines of the soft-ground etching are the only repeated element in Barker’s series. Photo by Tony Luong

Hayley Barker

Wingate Farm Welcome Bouquet 7, 2023

Monoprint in oil with soft-ground etching on Dieu Donné handmade paper

29 7/8 x 21 1/2 inches (75.9 x 54.6 cm)

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Barker counts French symbolist painter Odilon Redon as a major source of inspiration. Odilon Redon, Still Life with Flowers, 1905 (detail). Courtesy The Art Institute of Chicago

Hayley Barker, Wingate Farm Welcome Bouquet 4, 2023 (detail)

as quotidian as the ostensible subject may be, her treatment of it possesses a kind of visionary grandeur.
—Barry Schwabsky, Artforum

Barker touches up areas of a finished monoprint. Photo by Tony Luong

about the artist

Hayley Barker (b. 1973, Oregon) is a Los Angeles–based artist known for her delicately rendered, ethereal landscapes painted on raw linen that feature the sumptuous palette and fine brushwork of the impressionists and the dreamlike imagery of nineteenth-century symbolists.

Barker had solo exhibitions at Night Gallery, Los Angeles; SHRINE, New York; BozoMag, Los Angeles; and Luis De Jesus, Los Angeles. She has participated in group shows at Night Gallery, Los Angeles; Harper’s, East Hampton; Acquavella, New York; Nicodim, Los Angeles; and SHRINE, New York, among others. Barker has been featured in several publications, including Artforum, Forbes, Hyperallergic, BOMB Magazine, W Magazine, Juxtapoz, LA Weekly, and the Los Angeles Times. Her work belongs in the collections of the Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; Oregon State University, Corvallis; University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art, Iowa City; and the YAGEO Foundation, Taiwan. Hayley Barker is represented by SHRINE, New York, Night Gallery, Los Angeles, and Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh.

Portrait of Hayley Barker, 2023. Photo by Tony Luong

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