Alvaro Barrington’s multimedia approach to image-making employs burlap, textiles, postcards and clothing. Considering himself primarily a painter, he also often works with performance and fashion, incorporating everyday objects into his works. Barrington explores how materials can function as visual tools while referencing their personal, political and commercial histories. He is often inspired by other artists, borrowing or copying from them and from other references, including art history and music. He is also informed by memory and nostalgia, using experiences from his life that have shaped him.
Two works, 1944–1977 (2018) and Lamb of God (2020) were gifted to Towner Eastbourne. 1944–1977 is a screen print that references work by other artists made in the eponymous time period. Having this dialogue with existing artworks is an essential part of his process and something he incorporates into his shows. Barrington’s play on connections between diverse historical and contemporary cultural references is visible in Lamb of God, whose title highlights a phrase from the Bible: ‘Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.’ Both works are held in the artist’s characteristic home-made frames, which have been partially painted in contrasting colours.
Born to Grenadian and Haitian parents and raised between the Caribbean and New York, Barrington’s work deals with travel and cultural exchange. The artist is interested in what he describes as ‘celebrating communities in the way that they celebrate themselves, and the diverse cultural language in which we celebrate ourselves’. This corresponds with the Towner’s collection, which focuses on themes around landscape, community and location. 1944–1977 and Lamb of God formed part of the Towner 100: Unseen exhibition in 2023, which celebrated recent, unseen or less well-known acquisitions to the collection.
