Elizabeth Barnett

Artist Profile

Biography

Elizabeth Barnett’s vibrant still life paintings introduce exotic and visually compelling botanicals to domestic scenes of treasured objects, books and furniture. This introduction gives new dimension to Barnett’s intimate still life scenes. Her subjects do not sit flat upon the canvas, but instead reach up from it, enlivened by the wild and natural world. This liveliness belies the ‘stillness’ of still life painting and along with Barnett’s painterly gestures of shadow, line and colour creates a visual dynamism reaches beyond tradition. Barnett’s revisioning of tradition, similarly plays to perceptions of domesticity and daily life. Far from a sense of duty or routine, there is an implicit celebration of the everyday in Barnett’s work. In a bustling cosmopolitan world Barnett draws her viewer into scenes of daily life at her Macedon studio and its bushland surrounds, offering a gentle and wondrous escape.
Elizabeth Barnett studied a Bachelor of Fine Arts Printmaking at The Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne 2002-2004; Bachelor Fine Arts Honours – Printmaking, RMIT, Melbourne, 2006; and a Masters of Arts- Illustration, Camberwell College of Art, London, 2008-2009. Barnett was awarded the Collie Print Trust scholarship at the Australian Print Workshop in 2006. In 2010 Barnett founded Schoolhouse Studios Inc with Alice Glenn in 2010, a not-for-profit artist studios complex in the former St. Joseph’s Technical College in Abbotsford. She has been a finalist in the Hawkesbury Art Prize 2021, the Eutick Still Life Award 2019, the Ravenswood Women’s Art Prize 2017. In 2022 she collaborated with Review and Nancy Bird and in 2021 was featured in Amber Creswell Bell’s Thames & Hudson publication, Still Life: Contemporary Australian Painters. Barnett is a Kyneton Contemporary Art Triennial committee member and project producer.

BIOGRAPHY

Exhibitions

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2022
A Field of Flowers, Cook Street Collective, Flinders
To the Coast, Michael Reid, Southern Highlands

2021
Still the Seasons, Michael Reid Murrundi, New South Wales
One Thousand Mornings, Michael Reid Murrundi, NSW

2020
A Rose by Any Other Name, James Makin Gallery, Melbourne
Still the Seasons, Michael Reid, Murrurundi

2019
Nature Table, Elms Gallery, Sydney
Blue, The Design Files, Melbourne

2018
Preservation, Modern Times, Melbourne
In All Weather, Happenstore, Sydney

2017
Herbal Medicine, The Design Files, Melbourne
Arrangements: New Works, Boom Gallery, Geelong
Portraits of Early Summer, Ivy Muse, Melbourne

2016
Interiors, Modern Times, Melbourne

2015
In a Temperate Climate, The Design Files, Melbourne
House Plant, Heritage Hill Gallery, Melbourne

2014
Sanctuary, Long Division Gallery, Schoolhouse Studios, Melbourne

2013
Everything Familiar, Up Close, The Art Shop and Gallery, Abergavenny, Wales

2011
House Boats, Art2Muse gallery, Sydney

2010
In Search of Invisible Cities, Dickerson Gallery, Melbourne

2008
These Four Walls, Dickerson Gallery, Melbourne

2007
Travelling Places: Home and Elsewhere, Dickerson Gallery, Melbourne

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2023
A Room of One’s Own – Women in Still Life, Bett Gallery, Hobart
Sydney Contemporary, James Makin Gallery, Carriageworks, Sydney
Summer New, James Makin Gallery, Melbourne

2022
Summer New, James Makin Gallery
Art of the Garden, Michael Reid, Murrurundi

2021
Chapter Three, James Makin Gallery, Melbourne
Country Table, Michael Reid Murrundi, New South Wales
Summer New, James Makin Gallery, Melbourne

2020
Summer New, James Makin Gallery, Melbourne
The Country Interior, Michael Reid Murrurundi, NSW
Talismans, Rafts, Momentos, Modern Times, Melbourne

2019
Ritual Practice, Modern Times, Melbourne
Group Exhibition of Represented Artists’, James Makin Gallery
Summer Projects, Boom Gallery, Geelong

2018
Vase and Vessel- An Ode to Morandi, Saint Cloche, Sydney

2017
This Place, Here, The Diggers Store, Castlemaine
TDF Open House, The Design Files Open House, Melbourne
Interior Worlds, Lauriston Press, Kyneton

2016
Christmas Exhibition, Lauriston Press, Kyneton
HOME, Modern Times, Melbourne

2015
The Design Files Inaugural Fundraiser Exhibition, The Design Files, Melbourne

2014
Impressions, Australian Print Workshop, Melbourne

2013
Place of Assembly included in Locale, Yarra City Council, Richmond

2012
Place of Assembly, Schoolhouse Studios, Melbourne
Elizabeth Barnett and Ami Summers, Art2Muse Gallery, Sydney
Drifting Homeward, Printmaker Gallery, Melbourne
Impressions, Australian Print Workshop, Melbourne

2011
Outside In, Schoolhouse Studios, Melbourne
Allure (Light Installation) Princes Wharf with Aden Narkowicz, Hobart

2010
Impressions, Australian Print Workshop, Melbourne
Unfolding, The Art Shop and Gallery, Abergavenny, Wales
Printmaking 10A, Brunswick Street Gallery, Melbourne

2009
MA Graduate Show, Camberwell College of Art, Camberwell, London
Unfolding, The Art Shop, Abergavenny, Wales
Playroom, Dream Space Gallery, London
40 x 40 x 40, Dickerson Gallery, Melbourne
New Figuration, James Makin Gallery, Melbourne

2008
Christmas Group Exhibition, Port Jackson Press, Melbourne
Printing Figuratively, Port Jackson Press, Melbourne
A Trick of The Light, The Dolls House Gallery, Melbourne

2007
50, Curated by Rona Green, Geelong Gallery, Geelong
Open House: Recent works by Elizabeth Barnett & Sarah Hicks, Young Street Artist-Run Space, Melbourne

2006
Print Trust Emerging Printmakers Scholarships Exhibition, Australian Print Workshop, Melbourne
Printed Matter Only, RMIT Graduate Exhibition, RMIT First Site Gallery, Melbourne
Impressions, Australian Print Workshop Fundraising Exhibition, Australian Print Workshop, Melbourne

2005
Transit, Australian Print Workshop, Melbourne
The Artist and the Environment, Melbourne Environmental Arts Festival, curated by Elizabeth Barnett, Emma
Hicks and Sarah Hicks, Domain House, Melbourne Royal Botanical Gardens, Melbourne

2004
Graduates Exhibition, Dickerson Gallery, Melbourne
VCA Graduate Exhibition, Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne

2002
Top Arts, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Awards

GRANTS/ COMMISSIONS/ SCHOLARSHIPS/ PRIZES/ MEMBERSHIPS

2022
Review Australia, Artist’s Collection

2019
current Kyneton Contemporary Art Triennial committee member and project producer
Finalist, Hawksbury Art Prize

2018
Finalist, Eutick Still Life Award, Wollongong

2017
Finalist, Ravenswood Women’s Art Prize, Sydney

2016
Goods Homewares collaboration with The Design Files, Bonnie and Neil and Elizabeth Barnett

2010
Tasmanian Art Site commission, Public Art installation in collaboration with Aden Narkowicz, Princes Wharf, Hobart

2006
Collie Print Trust Scholarship, Australian Print Workshop

ARTWORKS

Elizabeth Barnett Gifts from the Garden, Gifts from the Sea 2023 oil on linen 71 x 71 cm $4,900.00 ENQUIRE →
Elizabeth Barnett The Artist’s Table II 2023 oil on linen 71 x 81 cm $5,200.00 ENQUIRE →
Elizabeth Barnett The Artist’s Table I 2023 oil on linen 71 x 81 cm $5,200.00 ENQUIRE →
Elizabeth Barnett Arrangement in Blue 2023 oil on linen 31 x 31 cm $2,600.00 ENQUIRE →
Elizabeth Barnett Turn of the Season 2023 oil on linen 122.5 x 152 cm $8,500.00 ENQUIRE →
Elizabeth Barnett Of Womankind 2023 oil on linen 51 x 41 cm $3,500.00 ENQUIRE →
Elizabeth Barnett Milk Jug and Morandi 2023 oil on linen 107 x 107 cm $5,900.00 ENQUIRE →
Elizabeth Barnett Milk and Honey 2023 oil on linen 51 x 41 cm $3,500.00 ENQUIRE →
Elizabeth Barnett Cherry Plum Blossom 2023 oil on linen 76 x 66 cm $4,900.00 ENQUIRE →