An unwavering commitment to community informs Barrington's wide-ranging practice alongside an exploration of migration and cross-cultural exchange.
Alvaro Barrington (b. 1983 Caracas, Venezuela) is an artist based in London and New York. Born in Venezuela to Grenadian and Haitian parents, Alvaro Barrington was raised between the Caribbean and Brooklyn, New York. An unwavering commitment to community informs his wide-ranging practice. While Barrington considers himself primarily a painter, his artistic collaborations encompass exhibitions, performances, concerts, fashion and contributions to the Notting Hill Carnival in London. His approach to painting is similarly inclusive – embracing non-traditional materials and techniques such as burlap, concrete, cardboard and sewing – and infused with references to his personal and cultural history.
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1916-223, 2021
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1916-224, 2021
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1916-225, 2021
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1916-227, 2021
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1916-228, 2021
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1916-229, 2021
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1916-230, 2021
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1916-231, 2021
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1916-232, 2021
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1916-233, 2021
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1916-234, 2021
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1916-235, 2021
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1916-236, 2021
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1916-237, 2021
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1916-238, 2021
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Be his Peace, 2021
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Black Power, 2021
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Cloud 1, 2021
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Cloud 2, 2021
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Cloud 3, 2021
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Don't Rush, 2021
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Get it Right, 2021
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ICU, 2021
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Notes on Being Present, 2021
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Notes on Claiming Time, 2021
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Notes on Emotional Trauma, 2021
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Notes on Forgiving Yourself, 2021
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Notes on Healing, 2021
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Notes on Pain, 2021
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Notes on Recovery, 2021
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Notes on Saying Fuck It, 2021
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Notes on What U Need, 2021
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Notes on Yes to Strangers, 2021
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Pull up to my Bumpa, 2021
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Slow Down, 2021
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U the Wettest, 2021
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Upgrade U, 2021
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What's Next, 2021
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1363-1963, 2020
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1363-1964, 2020
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1363-1965, 2020
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1363-1966, 2020
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1363-1967, 2020
Alvaro Barrington (b. 1983 Caracas, Venezuela) is an artist based in London and New York. Born in Venezuela to Grenadian and Haitian parents, Alvaro Barrington was raised between the Caribbean and Brooklyn, New York. An unwavering commitment to community informs his wide-ranging practice. While Barrington considers himself primarily a painter, his artistic collaborations encompass exhibitions, performances, concerts, fashion and contributions to the Notting Hill Carnival in London. His approach to painting is similarly inclusive – embracing non-traditional materials and techniques such as burlap, concrete, cardboard and sewing – and infused with references to his personal and cultural history.
Influence and exchange are crucial to Barrington, who draws upon a host of artistic and cultural references in his work. His personal touchstones include rapper Tupac Shakur and 90s hip-hop culture, jazz and the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s, Jamaican political activist Marcus Garvey, modernist icons such as Willem de Kooning, Paul Klee, Agnes Martin and Louise Bourgeois, and his art-world peers. His resolutely interdisciplinary approach follows in the footsteps of Robert Rauschenberg’s groundbreaking Combines, which he references by incorporating real objects into the picture plane, including carpets, steel drums, brooms and fans. He is an artist who is continually expanding his constellation of references, inspirations and communities, while always acknowledging the formative role of art history in his practice.
Barrington's work is part of institutional collections, including The Hepworth Wakefield, Wakefield; ICA, Miami; K11 Art Foundation, Hong Kong; Loewe Foundation, Madrid; Fundación NMAC, Cádiz; Rennie Museum, Vancouver; Start Museum, Shanghai; X Museum, Beijing and Tate, London. Recent solo exhibitions and projects include: They Got Time, Galerie Thaddeus Ropac Pantin, Paris (2023); Grandma's Land, Sadie Coles HQ, London (2023); Notting Hill Carnival, London (2023, 2022, 2019); 91-98 jfk-lax border, Blum & Poe, Los Angeles (2022); SPIDER THE PIG, PIG THE SPIDER, South London Gallery, London (2021); GARVEY 1: BIRTH – The Quiet Storm, Nicola Vassell Gallery, New York (2021); Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris (2021); Corvi-Mora, London (2020); Sadie Coles HQ, London (2021, 2019); Emalin, London (2021, 2019, 2018) and MoMA PS1, Queens, NY, USA (2017).
Barrington's work has been shown in multiple group exhibitions, including The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, USA (2023); The Drawing Centre Show, Le Consortium, Dijon, France (2022); Mixing it Up: Painting Today, Hayward Gallery, London, UK (2021), among many others. Together with Julia Peyton-Jones he curated the exhibition Artists I Steal From atThaddaeus Ropac, London (2019).
Barrington was selected to present a new installation for the Tate Britain Commission in 2024.
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Alvaro Barrington: Island Life
9 Nov - 21 Dec 2023 -
Alvaro Barrington: GARVEY 1: BIRTH — The Quiet Storm
10 Sep - 30 Oct 2021Nicola Vassell Gallery is pleased to present, Alvaro Barrington: GARVEY 1: BIRTH -The Quiet Storm. It is the first chapter in a four-part ode by the artist to the life...Read more -
The Earth, That Is Sufficient
15 Jul - 1 Sep 2021Nicola Vassell Gallery is pleased to present, The Earth, That is Sufficient. The assembled, multi-generational group enlists various narrative methodologies to describe landscape in traditional terms and as new terrain...Read more
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WNYC: Alvaro Barrington Paints 'Island Life'
November 29, 2023 -
A brush with... Alvaro Barrington
Ben Luke, David Clack, The Art Newspaper, August 16, 2023 -
Frieze: Meet Me at Reception, Alvaro Barrington and Róisín Tapponi
Frieze , April 21, 2023 -
Art Gallery Shows to See Right Now
Roberta Smith, The New York Times, September 16, 2021 -
‘THE EARTH, THAT IS SUFFICIENT’ OPENS AT NICOLA VASSELL GALLERY
Shelton Boyd-Griffith, Grazia Magazine, July 20, 2021 -
Alvaro Barrington’s Next Move
Andrew Durbin, Frieze, July 1, 2021 -
How Rising Art Star Alvaro Barrington Charmed London's Top Galleries Into Breaking Their Own Rules for the Chance to Wor
Kate Brown, Artnet News, January 13, 2020 -
The Painter Alvaro Barrington on the Art He 'Steals' From
Farah Nayeri, The New York Times, June 26, 2019