Director’s Choice at Kenise Barnes Fine Art

March 13, 2025

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“A Journey Worth Celebrating”

Longevity is a relative rarity in an art world where galleries come and go. Sometimes you get lucky and find yourself with a gallerist who works as hard as you do. Kenise Barnes is one such gallerist. Her current exhibition, Director’s Choice: Celebrating 30 Years at Kenise Barnes Fine Art, features the work of artists who have been with her through the long haul. The gallery is located in the Kent Barns complex in Kent, Connecticut.

Director’s Choice is up through April 13.

“Thirty years ago, I never could have imagined that what began as a small idea would become a life’s work,” says Kenise Barnes. “I am proud to say that the gallery supports many artists in a multitude of ways allowing them to continue their important contributions and work. The rewards, the complexities, and the sheer tenacity that being in this business for three decades requires are many: countless studio visits, writing hundreds of press releases and letters of recommendation, juggling finances in a fluctuating marketplace, managing personalities of artists, collectors and art advisors, marketing, sales, parties, dinners, long installation days, endless loading and unloading my SUV, gallons of white paint only eclipsed by the gallons of white wine and so much more. It has been a journey worth celebrating.

“Director’s Choice brings together some of the many artists who helped establish the gallery and with whom we have longstanding relationships: Daniel Alselmi, Jackie Battenfield, Gabe Brown, Cecile Chong, David Collins, Susan English, Gregory Hennen, Michiyo Ihara, Mary Judge, Andrea Kantrowitz, David Konigsberg, Margaret Lanzetta, Joanne Mattera, Laura Moriarty, Margaret Neill, Jill Parisi, Melanie Parke, Donna Sharrett, Eve Stockton, Josette Urso, Eleanor White, and Tricia Wright.”

Gallery hours: Thursday-Saturday, 11:00-5:30; Sunday, 12:00-4:00
More info

Director’s Choice features figuration and abstraction, nature and geometry, brilliant color and richly achromatic work. We’re going to travel clockwise around the gallery and then walk into the annex space, whose entrance is at left on the fall wall

Cecile Chong, three by Tricia Wright

Cecile Chong, Self Service, 2021, encaustic and mixed media on panel

Tricia Wright, Small Matters (hand and flower), 2023, 23-karat red gold leaf on handmade paper

Continuing around, Tricia Wright, Donna Sharrett

Below: Donna Sharrett, Hitkwike Green River Watershed, 2021, fabric, trimming, thread, guitar strings, and ball ends

Margaret Lanzetta

Installation view above

Below: foreground, Glinda, Good Witch of the North, Wizard of Oz 1939, 2016, stoneware with graphite finish; on shelf: Princess Diana, Spencer Tiara, UK, ca. 1930, 2016, porcelain; print: Marquess Marchioness 1, 2021, oil-based inks, paper and Mylar relief monoprint on Rives BFK paper

Foreground left: Margaret Lanzetta, Joffrey, Game of Thrones, 2011, 2016, stoneware with graphite finish

Continuing around: Eve Stockton, Mary Judge, Susan English

Eve Stockton, Falls Var. 10, 2022, woodblock print with colored and silver inks on paper

Continuing around: Mary Judge, Susan English, David Collins, David Konigsberg

Mary Judge, Pollinator, 2020, oil on linen

Susan English, Seagirt, 2024, tinted polymer on Dibond panel

David Collins, Here and There, 2025, acrylic on canvas

David Konigsberg, Sprite and Anemone, 2022, oil on canvas

Turning the corner to the next wall, with Josette Urso, Jill Parisi, Gabe Brown

Josette Urso, Overview, 2019, oil on canvas

Jill Parisi, Earth and Sky Star, 2021, hand-colored digital prints on hand-cut, pigmented, handmade lotkah paper pinned with black enameled brass tipped entomology pins to fabric-covered Ethafoam, Dibond, and wood strainer in acrylic shadowbox

Gabe Brown, Water Diaries, 2021, oil on linen on panel

View of wall from opposite angle: three by Jill Parisi, Gabe Brown, Margaret Neill

Margaret Neill, Sweet Talk, oil on canvas

With our tour of the first gallery complete, we head into the smaller second gallery, passing this work by . . .

Daniel Anselmi, Untitled (7-14), 2024, painted paper collage on panel, 12 x 18 inches

Entering the second gallery: Laura Moriarty, left; Eleanor White

Eleanor White

Above: Earthbound, 2022, crushed jade, snakeskin shed, porcupine quills, bonded copper, fossilized wood, eggshell, wood ash, glassbeads, polymer medium on painted paper

Below: Hanging on back wall, Untitled, 2025, sodalite, labradorite, mother of pearl, kyanite, ruby, volcanic rock, howlite, polymer medium on painted paper, 21.5 x 15 inches framed