Online Exhibition

Utopia Editions: Hayley Barker

This large-scale etching by Los Angeles–based artist Hayley Barker, now available in an edition of 30, depicts the orb weaver spider, a subject she explored in paintings based on her parents’ backyard in Oregon.

Barker created Orb Weaver, Late Summer—her second etching—at Wingate Studio. There, in a classic New England barn on a fifty-five-acre family farm in New Hampshire, the artist worked with master printers James Pettengill and Leo Zhao to develop this limited edition print.

“There is something of late summer in this work. The colors have all gone past their fullest points and become slightly muted. Yet this makes the little bits of brightness that are left stick out even more—as well as the shades of brown and black. There’s this sense of tension with complete peace and ease, just like how a spider is a hunter and a protector at the same time.”

—Hayley Barker

Barker reviews a watercolor study she created for the etching. Photo by Alyssa Robb. Courtesy Wingate Studio

Barker paints with acid directly onto the surface of a copper plate using the spit-bite aquatint technique, which is used in etching to create soft, painterly marks. Photo by Alyssa Robb. Courtesy Wingate Studio

Barker refers to a color trial proof as she prepares to work on a copper plate. Photo by Alyssa Robb. Courtesy Wingate Studio

 

Hayley Barker, Orb Weaver, Late Summer, 2024 (detail)

Barker is known for large-scale, delicately rendered, ethereal landscapes painted on raw linen that feature a sumptuous palette and fine brushwork reminiscent of French impressionism and the dreamlike imagery of nineteenth-century symbolist art.

Orb Weaver, Late Summer, measuring more than three feet in height, is Barker’s largest print to date. The expanded dimensions of the etching allowed Barker to work on a scale closer to that of her paintings, adopting a gestural and direct approach to her mark making. The result is a finished print that uniquely mirrors the experimental nature of her painting practice.

Each print is signed and numbered by the artist. Photo by Alyssa Robb. Courtesy Wingate Studio

“Her works speak of mystery, loss: intimations of what lies beyond the boundaries of the self.”

—Barry Schwabsky, Artforum

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