Strand Gallery
January 15 – April 17, 2022
ArtWalk Reception
Saturday, January 15, 2021
6 – 9 PM
This exhibition is supported in part by a grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts.
Nick Barbee
Undeniable
Undeniable is a ten-year survey of the work of Nick Barbee spanning the time he has lived and worked in Galveston, TX. Barbee describes his work as an examination of “the role of representation in the construction of culture and meaning.” His studio practice centers around historical figures and narratives, often through mundane objects and with some personal connection to these histories. These disparate narratives are deconstructed both conceptually and through a range of media, resulting in a continual reevaluation and blurring of gaps in their meanings. The resulting works include a maquette based on memory of museums visited by the artist, sculptures based on ballistic diagrams, security envelope collages depicting society’s outcasts, and paintings of monuments with plaques whose texts mock the sculptures they adorn. While Barbee’s work delves into times, places, and objects from the past, the mutual influence of a place like Galveston over the past decade is also evident.
Nick Barbee (b. 1981) lives and works in Galveston, TX. He received his MFA in painting from the Tyler School of Art and BFA from Pratt Institute. Barbee relocated to Texas in 2009 to participate in the Core Residency Program at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. He has lived and worked in Galveston since participating as an inaugural resident in the Galveston Artist Residency in 2011. His work has been featured in exhibitions regionally at the Amarillo Museum of Art Biennial, The Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, the Texas Biennial, Lawndale Art Center, Gallery Homeland, Alabama Song, CentralTrak, and the Dallas Biennale at the Dallas Contemporary. Barbee is the founder of the Galveston Art Lending Library (A.L.L.) for which he received an Idea Fund Award through the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. He is currently a visiting artist and lecturer at the Katherine McGovern College of the Arts at the University of Houston.
