The most recent installation at OUTLET features three Brooklyn-based artists, Javier Barrios, Genesis Belanger, and Joshua Cave, whose practice is dedicated to both painting and sculpture. Although these artists work with mass produced construction materials such as foam, metal, silicon, plaster, and concrete, they’re primarily inspired by themes of nature and natural phenomena. By representing their notion of the natural world and its rich metaphoric properties, Barrios, Belanger, and Cave create figural references that remind the viewer of our precarious place in nature.
Javier Barrios does not shy away from asking complex questions about our origins that science and religion have grappled with for centuries. His artistic practice encompasses the terrains of utopia and reality and draws inspiration from science fiction, visions of the future, technology, architecture, science and space exploration, and nature. The fundamental components of his work ask philosophical questions surrounding the existence of Mankind and our need for definition in this arena. In “Natural Tendencies,” Barrios presents multiple paintings and objects that employ contrasting artistic idioms. The layers of meaning present in the work hint at the vastness of the universe and the relatively contracted nature of human exploration. His use of organic images and materials is often contrasted with more scientific and mathematically informed imagery.
John Silvis