Artwork copyright Jacqueline Barnett. Photo courtesy of Washington State Arts Commission, 2021.

Cycles, 1989

Jacqueline Barnett
American (born 1934)

Location: Washington State Arts Commission, Olympia

About the Artwork

Artist Jacqueline Barnett created the abstract painting Cycles slowly over the course of many weeks. She notes, "I would paint some, let it dry, and then return to the painting weeks later, and cover up many parts, scrape paint from other areas, and keep building the composition. Gradually, the meaning became clear [...] I felt that there was a rhythm in the white life-like shapes, which appeared out of the dark spaces of history. It is a painting meant to honor the cycles of all life and recognize a similarity in all cultures and symbol-making people."

This artwork was acquired for the State Art Collection in partnership with Washington State Arts Commission.

About the Artist

Jacqueline Barnett is a Seattle-based artist. Her abstract artworks explore visual narratives and emotions found in the interaction of color, gesture, and form.
Born in New York, Barnett took an interest in art from a young age. In 1955, she graduated from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. In 1966, her husband accepted a faculty position at Stanford Law School and they moved to California with their five children. She first took formal painting classes at Stanford, where she became interested in feminism and in communicating a sense of self in her paintings and monotype prints. She and her husband have lived in Seattle since 1985, where she continues to create expressive and energetic abstract paintings.