With CIRCLINGS, the title of his latest exhibition, Ivan Barnett returns to his signature mobiles. Designed with forms snipped from sheets of oxidized steel, mobiles in this exhibit will be up to six feet high and composed with softened organic shapes.

The languid circlings of mobiles are familiar to most people. As the mobile turns, each of its elements turn, too, and the whole arrangement changes. Because the relationships of the parts infinitely and continuously alter, a mobile never precisely repeats itself. It is always uniquely arranged. The same might be said of Ivan Barnett’s works. His vocabulary of materials, color and shapes has remained fairly consistent over the course of his almost forty year career. Sometimes working with wood, often with oxidized steel, his work undergoes continuous, meaningful and satisfying shifts. Its evolution is steady.

Barnett’s work is highly design driven. Every aspect of a piece is thought out and assessed. “I’ll spend hours moving a piece, from left to right, from right to left, to up, to down. I’m looking for its right place from a design perspective. Because good design is good design, I always consider the classic principles when I work...but there’s room for the surprise, too, and I love the unknown. I can’t know where the design will lead or what the outcome will be.”

Barnett’s focus in this exhibition will be mobiles featuring abstract forms, rather than figurative ones. He will also use found objects, like wafer thin beach stones or sun-bleached fish bones, more tracery than fish, or maybe a small button. They will be incorporated quietly, appearing on one side of an element but not the other. As the element turns on the mobile, the found object will appear, and then be gone.

“I’ll use the found objects in a delicate way...they won’t scream. They serve to punctuate, they’re not a central component. They’ll work with a quiet statement. It’s the one time when I am in the studio that I think about the viewer. If I add a red button, with a mobile, it’s like, ‘What the hell’s that doing there?’ I like the unexpected, some oddity, but only once in awhile. Then it’s fun.... I love using found objects. Something that’s been out in the world, like a crushed bottle cap, takes on a whole new meaning when it’s placed into a work of art. You re-contextualize the object...I love the surprise.”

Each time he begins a new group of works, Barnett returns to the work he most recently completed. It is how he balances creative life with his daily life, family and the responsibilities of his gallery, Patina. He views his art work on a continuum, as an ever evolving process. He is never fully done and he never fully stops. By returning to the studio, to the place where he left off, he can pick up the strand and resume his focus.

“Subtle” and “nuance” are two of Barnett’s favorite words. One way to understand this appreciation is to know that he observes very closely. He sees things many others will miss and his eye for detail is tireless. His attention to design stems from his particular sensitivity to spacial relationships and color. Endlessly shifting the placement of a stone to find its right spot in a composition is all just part of his work as an artist.

The trajectory of Ivan Barnett’s career in craft spans almost 40 years and its arc tightly parallels the evolution of the American craft movement. His work has involved nearly all aspects of the field, from making to writing, consulting and currently owning one of the country’s premier fine craft galleries, Patina Gallery in Santa Fe.

Barnett’s career achieved a high profile in the early eighties when articles in Architectural Digest, Country Home and Better Homes and Gardens extolled his artwork, especially his wood and steel weathervanes. His portfolio includes notes from Ronald and Nancy Reagan, and pictures of the White House Christmas tree where his ornaments were hung. The New York Times reviewed an exhibition with his work and galleries across the country clamored to show it. It was then that Alexander Girard acquired works by Barnett, pieces that now reside in the Girard Wing of Santa Fe’s Museum of International Folk Art.

This will be Barnett’s fifth exhibition at Patina. The scheduling of each permits Barnett the rare opportunity to focus exclusively on his own artwork and return to his passion for creating. For this artist, parent and husband, gallery owner and director, such time is precious.

An opening will be held from 5 - 7 on December 3, 2010. Barnett will attend the opening.