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 To the Coast, Michael Reid, Southern Highlands
2021 Still the Seasons, Michael Reid Murrundi, New South Wales
2021 One Thousand Mornings, Michael Reid Murrundi, NSW
2020 A Rose by Any Other Name, James Makin Gallery, Melbourne
2020 Still the Seasons, Michael Reid, Murrurundi
2019 Nature Table, Elms Gallery, Sydney
2019 Blue, The Design Files, Melbourne
2018 Preservation, Modern Times, Melbourne
2018 In All Weather, Happenstore, Sydney
2017 Herbal Medicine, The Design Files, Melbourne
2017 Arrangements: New Works, Boom Gallery, Geelong
2017 Portraits of Early Summer, Ivy Muse, Melbourne
2016 Interiors, Modern Times, Melbourne
2015 In a Temperate Climate, The Design Files, Melbourne
2015 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
2022 Summer New, James Makin Gallery
2022 Art of the Garden, Michael Reid, Murrurundi
2021 Chapter Three, James Makin Gallery, Melbourne
2021 Country Table, Michael Reid Murrundi, New South Wales
2021 Summer New, James Makin Gallery, Melbourne
2020 Summer New, James Makin Gallery, Melbourne
2020 The Country Interior, Michael Reid Murrurundi, NSW
2020 Talismans, Rafts, Momentos, Modern Times, Melbourne
2019 Ritual Practice, Modern Times, Melbourne
2019 Group Exhibition of Represented Artists’, James Makin Gallery
2019 Summer Projects, Boom Gallery, Geelong
2018 Vase and Vessel- An Ode to Morandi, Saint Cloche, Sydney
2017 This Place, Here, The Diggers Store, Castlemaine
2017 TDF Open House, The Design Files Open House, Melbourne
2017 Interior Worlds, Lauriston Press, Kyneton
2016 Christmas Exhibition, Lauriston Press, Kyneton
2016 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
2012 Elizabeth Barnett and Ami Summers, Art2Muse Gallery, Sydney
2012 Drifting Homeward, Printmaker Gallery, Melbourne
2012 Impressions, Australian Print Workshop, Melbourne
2011 Outside In, Schoolhouse Studios, Melbourne
2011 Allure (Light Installation) Princes Wharf with Aden Narkowicz, Hobart
2010 Impressions, Australian Print Workshop, Melbourne
2010 Unfolding, The Art Shop and Gallery, Abergavenny, Wales
2010 Printmaking 10A, Brunswick Street Gallery, Melbourne
2009 MA Graduate Show, Camberwell College of Art, Camberwell, London
2009 Unfolding, The Art Shop, Abergavenny, Wales
2009 Playroom, Dream Space Gallery, London
2009 40 x 40 x 40, Dickerson Gallery, Melbourne
2009 New Figuration, James Makin Gallery, Melbourne
2008 Christmas Group Exhibition, Port Jackson Press, Melbourne
2008 Printing Figuratively, Port Jackson Press, Melbourne
2008 A Trick of The Light, The Dolls House Gallery, Melbourne
2007 50, Curated by Rona Green, Geelong Gallery, Geelong
2007 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
2006 Printed Matter Only, RMIT Graduate Exhibition, RMIT First Site Gallery, Melbourne
2006 Impressions, Australian Print Workshop Fundraising Exhibition, Australian Print Workshop, Melbourne
2005 Transit, Australian Print Workshop, Melbourne
2005 The Artist and the Environment, Melbourne Environmental Arts Festival, curated by Elizabeth Barnett, Emma
2005 Hicks and Sarah Hicks, Domain House, Melbourne Royal Botanical Gardens, Melbourne
2004 Graduates Exhibition, Dickerson Gallery, Melbourne
2004 VCA Graduate Exhibition, Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne
2002 Top Arts, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Awards

GRANTS/ COMMISSIONS/ SCHOLARSHIPS/ PRIZES/ MEMBERSHIPS
2019- current Kyneton Contemporary Art Triennial committee member and project producer
2019 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 Renoir and Truitt 2023 oil on linen 92 x 82 cm $4,900.00 ENQUIRE →
Elizabeth Barnett Prospect and Yield 2023 oil on linen framed 82 x 72 cm $4,600.00 ENQUIRE →
Elizabeth Barnett After Anne Truitt 2023 oil on linen framed 82 x 72 cm $4,600.00 ENQUIRE →
Elizabeth Barnett Studio Table (diptych) 2023 oil on linen 153 x 214 cm $12,400.00 ENQUIRE →
Elizabeth Barnett Gathering from the Garden 2023 oil on linen 92 x 82 cm $4,900.00 ENQUIRE →
Elizabeth Barnett Hydrangeas After Bonnard 2023 oil on linen framed 92 x 82 cm $4,900.00 ENQUIRE →
Elizabeth Barnett Honeybush Smokebush 2023 oil on linen framed 92 x 82 cm $4,900.00 ENQUIRE →
Elizabeth Barnett Easter Daisies 2023 oil on linen framed 92 x 82 cm $4,900.00 ENQUIRE →
Elizabeth Barnett Peonies and Tea with Margaret 2021 oil on linen 77 x 67 cm $4,100.00 ENQUIRE →
Elizabeth Barnett Everything Summer 2020 oil on linen 71 x 71 cm $4,400.00 ENQUIRE →
Elizabeth Barnett Morning Moment with the Garden 2020 oil on linen 76 x 66 cm $4,400.00 ENQUIRE →
Elizabeth Barnett Studio Table at the End of the Day 2020 watercolour on paper 57 x 38.5 cm $1,300.00 ENQUIRE →