Kailey Barthel

About the Artist

Kailey Barthel is a visual artist working primarily in painting, drawing, and printmaking. Born in Milwaukee, WI, she received her Bachelor’s degrees in both Fine Arts and Latin at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and her MFA at the LeRoy E. Hoffberger School of Painting at MICA in Baltimore, MD. After graduating, she was awarded a residency at the Vermont Studio Center for their January 2019 session, and was the Fall 2020 Artist in Residence at the historic James Castle House in Boise, Idaho. She currently lives and works in Baltimore. 

Artist's Statement

Much of my work develops out of images of homes and domestic spaces. I'm thinking about how the coherence of a view of the room is disrupted by the cutting and reconjoining of disparate elements. What was once a familiar and legible domestic space becomes something else, and abrupt shifts in perspective, depth, and scale become disorienting. Although vacant of any visible human inhabitants, the spaces are deeply informed by human traces, but only remain in the evidence left behind. Instead, what becomes prevalent is the experience the architectural elements create, evoking dislocation as one moves through these spaces, as well as inconsistencies in our perceptions of time and memory. A wall simultaneously creates and defines spaces as well as disrupts and invades them, or shifts from a solid, stable structure to a transparent and diaphanous abstraction.