Barnes creates textural and sculptural works, objects, and site-specific architectural

installations that are made solely by hand. Every work embodies her deep fascination with

materiality, process, and experimentation and comes to life in her Lower East Side New York

studio where she devises her own methods and tools to produce the 3-dimensional forms, often

of large-scale sculptural expression. Using innovative wet bonding processes, woolen and

exotic fiber masses are contorted into a myriad of distortions and densities and fused with

contrasting elements to form abstract compositions that elude convention and challenge the

viewer’s preconceived notion of material and context. Barnes’ exploration of the duality of

material manifests in her novel use of fibers melded with concrete, stone, copper, clay,

Enviropoxy, rubber, steel, glass and knotted antique Persian carpets as an infusion substrate.

Whether informed by a material paradox or the gritty sensual beauty of natural forces, The artists’

work aspires to evoke a deep visceral and physical connection.

Barnes studied at Parsons and The New York Studio School on her way to a career designing

for high-end fashion houses in NYC and Europe. During these formative years, she lived and

traveled throughout the Indian subcontinent, Western and Eastern Europe, Scandinavia and

Asia cultivating a deep awareness of textile and tactile forms. She founded Dana Barnes Studio

in 2010 and today works from a turn-of-the-century former synagogue with a small team of

artisans to hand make both small and large scale compositions. The organic and textural nature

of Dana and her team’s work is inspired daily by the layers of history evident in the irregular

stone, brick, wood, and steel materiality of the building.