Painting by Leslie Barlow, courtesy of Mia
Leslie Barlow, Kelly Shay portrait
The Minneapolis Institute of Art announced an upcoming exhibition that will feature new work by the oil painter Leslie Barlow set for July.
Called "Leslie Barlow: Within, Between, and Beyond,” the exhibition will include 16 people who identify as mixed race people or transracial adoptees in different life-size paintings by the Minneapolis-based portrait artist, exploring "how race impacts identities and experiences and leaves a visceral impression on the body" alongside video interviews of her subjects, created in collaboration with mental health professional Lola Osunkoya.
“We have all heard or seen demographic studies heralding growing diversity in the United States, and that perceived increase in ‘mixedness’ is fraught and layered and complex,” Leslie Barlow said in a press release. “The work in this exhibition disengages from the idea of a simple or single story and creates space for historically excluded narratives, while specifically addressing the idea of belonging—what it means and who experiences it, and what that feeling entails.”
The subjects in Barlow's exhibition are members of the Twin Cities community. The artist specializes in tender portraits that capture people in everyday settings, with an eye for intimate details that invite the viewer to connect and discover more beyond the surface. The title of the exhibition comes from an essay on mixed-race identity by clinical psychologist and educator Maria P. P. Root.
“You cannot separate political power from the story of portraiture. It was a means to physically insert oneself into history—to demonstrate one’s worth,” said Nicole Soukup, Mia’s assistant curator of contemporary art and coordinator for the Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program. “Leslie Barlow’s work asks us to question whose legacies do we see on museums’ walls and why.”
Over the last year, Barlow also created the series Portraits during a Pandemic, and released the quarantine-themed COVID zine called Connection Unstable with her partner, photographer Ryan Stopera.
The exhibition opens July 16 through August 31. Accompanying programs include a conference and family day organized by MidWest Mixed for August 6–8, an artist talk on September 16, and a film screening in October.
